


Bucky Plants a Tree

by wordsphoenix



Series: Steve and Bucky have a house now [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Holes shout out, M/M, Recovery, Science for Plants, Steve and Bucky's sick-ass new house, christmas happens, quite a bit of cooped up in the house because of press reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-03-14 16:37:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18951901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsphoenix/pseuds/wordsphoenix
Summary: They're out to the world now so they kinda have to stay stuck in the house all the time. Bucky's working on hobbies to do since a) he could really use some, b) Steve's starting school soon, and c) he needs some way to socialize once the press dies down.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HEYOOOOO I'm back. This would have been posted last year but after 60k I needed a little break from this specific story. I am now back, fresh, and ready to finish installment #4.
> 
> General warning for anxiety/mental health issues. Don't anticipate anything too intense for this one, will warn you ahead of chapter if that changes.

            “Oh my god.”

            “What.”

            Bucky read a few more words and sighed. “This says I can’t plant my tree in the winter.”

            Steve didn’t say a damned word.

            Bucky pushed back from the table and groaned. “Fuck this. They want to be planted.”

            Steve was sitting on the sofa, reading. Glanced up. “The seeds?”

            Bucky nodded. “The seeds.” So far he’d only managed to keep Steve’s single aloe plant alive, but it was _alive_ so the natural next step in his logic was to go in Steve’s neglected (dirty-snowy) yard and plant a tree.

            “How are you gonna dig?”

            Bucky flailed his left arm around.

            “Okay. But the ground is frozen.”

            “Friday, call Stark.”

            “Calling Tony Stark,” Bucky’s fancy touch screeny new phone informed him from its spot on the kitchen counter. He’d got a crap one with Steve, just to keep in touch with everybody, but about fifteen minutes after they got back to the house post-not-Thanksgiving a drone landed on their doorstep with a sincere video message from Tony apologizing for forgetting to give these to them and promising nobody’d be able to tamper with them. The new AI was just an added bonus.

            Steve hadn’t turned on his Friday AI, but that wasn’t gonna stop Bucky. Hell, should probably ask Tony to install it on Steve’s laptop while he was at it. Probably do the punk some good.

            “Sup?”

            “I need your help with something.”

            “Legal or illegal?”

            “Tony!” Steve said from across the room as Bucky said, “Mostly legal. I think. Probably.”

            “What is it?”

            “Need to keep a tree warm so it can establish roots over the winter. Or not warm warm, I can’t make it too hot I just have to not have the ground be frozen.”

            “Normal people just plant when the ground isn’t frozen,” Steve mumbled from behind his book.

            “Normal people don’t know me,” Tony pointed out. “Can you dig a hole, Barnes?”

“Can I dig a- of course I can dig a hole.”

“I mean when the ground’s frozen.”

            Bucky made his voice as offended as he could. “You made me this arm!”

            “Okay, okay. I’ll be over in… two, yeah, two days. I’ll need at least five feet. Classic book Holes. Greatest film role Shia LeBoeuf ever had. Read that, too. While you’re digging. Or something. You and Steve and me- Steve still there?”

            “Where else would I be?” He said loudly from the sofa.

            “Great. Three of us are having a book club meeting while I install this thing. Don’t watch the movie first. It’s great. Fantastic. But read the book. Can’t have a book club if you don’t know the backstory inside out. See you in two days.” He hung up.

            Bucky tipped back in his kitchen chair until he was balanced on the very edges of two legs. “We gotta go to the bookstore.”

            Steve stared. “Now?”

            Bucky let his chair slam down for emphasis. “Book club’s in two days, Steve!”

            “Okay, okay! Rosie!”

            Bucky had no idea where she was, but with a word from Steve she was trotting into the room, tail wagging slightly, glancing between them. “Going to the store,” Bucky explained, and she went and sat by the hooks on the wall that held her harness and stuff. “God, you’re good.” When Bucky looked up to find Steve a foot away, coat and shoes on, he smirked. “You too.”

            “Oh, shut up.” He was wearing that stupid hat, too, which he somehow thought was going to conceal his identity.

            Bucky frowned. “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”

            “What?”

            “Going outside for something other than therapy a week after coming out on international television.”

            “Oh.” Steve frowned, too. Loveable idiot had forgotten for a second. “I could go?”

            “No,” Bucky shook his head. “Yes? I don’t- Rosie, what should I do?”

            She huffed a very confident sounding, respectfully quiet bark.

            Bucky nodded. “You’re right. We have no choice. That gay place will have this book, right?”

            “Stark called it a modern classic.”

            “He called it a classic, but since neither of us has heard of it even a little I’m assuming you’re right. Rosie. We’re going to the store, but I want you to wait outside with Steve. And if people come we run.”

            “That doesn’t sound like-”

            “Rosie and I are leaving technically you don’t have to come-”

            “Okay fine.” Steve was even more stir-crazy than Bucky. And he hadn’t been the one cooped up for extended periods of time while the press waxed poetic about him. He wasn’t required- or hell, even advised- to stay inside. He was just doing it because if people saw him they’d try to chase him back to Bucky and the idiot was noble enough to get into MarioKart instead of continuing to go outside, super soldier disregard for cold be damned.

            Bucky could barely get him to leave the house for groceries. They delivered everything now. “Fastest trip ever. Plus stopping for ice cream. But like I said, if they recognize us, we run.”

            Steve shook his head. “If that happens you two can duck out and I’ll just- hang on, Rosie can’t wait outside with me. What if you need to leave?”

            Bucky sighed. It’d been a dumb idea anyway. Almost as dumb as suggesting he and Rosie stay outside while Steve buy the book. For one, he’d spend an hour in there. Plus his mug was plastered over half the Avengers t-shirts sold at the train station alone. Better keep the excuse for the hat and sunglasses. Come to think of it- “Get your stupid aviators.”

            “They’re not stupid. It’s a disguise.”

            “Anyone with half a brain could tell it was you if they looked hard enough.”

            “Not everybody stares as often as you do, Buck.”

            “Ha ha,” Bucky said sarcastically, but within a minute they were on their way, so he wasn’t going to actually complain.

            Twenty minutes and Steve going inside anyway later, “This looks awesome,” Bucky said under his breath.

            Steve was two shelves away, but he heard. “What?”

            “It’s like gay Sherlock Holmes.”

            “I thought Sherlock Holmes was already gay?”

            “Yeah, but this is really gay. Canon gay.”

            “Where did you learn that word?” Steve popped out from behind his bookshelf.

            “The internet.”

            “Shouldn’t even be allowed on there,” Steve said, and swayed back out of sight.

            “Hey,” Bucky said, tucking the book under his arm because he was definitely investing in that one, “I’m canon gay too.”

            “I think canon implies something that’s not real. You’re a real person.”

            “Yeah, but I’m still canon-”

            “Shit.”

            Bucky stepped around the shelf and scanned the area. “What?”

            Couldn’t be a big deal, if Rosie hadn’t- “There’s a book about me.”

            Bucky huffed a laugh. “There’s a million books about you.”

            “No,” Steve said, and crouched, and pulled it off the shelf, “Look.”

            On the cover there was a picture of Steve, _little_ Steve, and the book was titled ‘The Complex Masculinity of Captain America.’ “Shit,” Bucky said.

            The cashier gave them a side-eye as they were paying. Apparently asking for Holes meant they were worthy of not having the press called on them, though. Or they weren’t being sold books by a shithead. Or the thought of Steve buying a book about himself was enough in itself. Either way, made it out unscathed.

            ‘Cept for the way Steve was tearing up the book about him within three seconds of them stepping out the door.

            “Someone’s gonna see,” Bucky hissed.

            Steve didn’t look up. This wasn’t the same lazy concentration as his reading before; he was totally engrossed in the thing. Probably wouldn’t have heard Bucky at all if it wasn’t impossible to ignore sound that close with their super hearing. “No. The font’s too small. Your eyes are good.”

            “I meant you holding a book with a picture of you on it.”

            Steve flipped it around. “Oh.”

            “Yeah. Maybe wait ‘til we get home?”

            “I was just getting to the good part.”

            “It’s about you, the whole thing’s a good part.”

            Steve looked up, a little red, ah fuck Bucky was blushing too, which, alright, Steve, so fair, but at the same time not fair.

            Bucky kept talking. “Read to me.”

            “What?”

            “If you’re not gonna pay me any attention on the way to the ice cream place, and I have to hold Rosie’s thing with one hand, I can’t start reading Holes or my book, so you owe me. On account of… being rude or something.”

            “You know, I always thought it had to be a conservative asshole that came up with the idea reading anywhere but a live performance could be considered rude. Though I guess with cell phones-”

            Bucky cleared his throat.

            “Right. Okay. Long as you don’t think reading out loud in the street is worse than the book just having my face on it.”

            Bucky shrugged. “Running’s still plan B.”

            Steve shook his head, but tipped it to the book again and picked up where he left off.

            The book was so great Bucky asked Steve to keep reading on the way home, and at home, and the only reason he stopped was he was getting hoarse and Bucky was not having his best guy getting dehydrated on account of his newfound love of audiobooks.

            Next morning, after failing to find an audiobook version of his new favorite bedtime story, Bucky suggested Steve record it.

            “What?”

            “Come on. It’ll be fun. Breakout role in your voice acting career. Also I just outed- well, I mean, you said it was okay, but still- everybody’s still freaking out about the you being gay thing.”

            “Half-gay,” Steve corrected.

            “Well, yeah, I’m not gonna- bisexual erasure, right? That’s the word? From chapter three?”

            “Yep,” Steve said.

            “Right,” Bucky continued. “Want to be right if I’m going to start yelling it every time someone does something stupid at Tony’s house. Anyway, not like it’ll be that much gas on the fire.”

            Steve smiled and whipped out his phone in record time. “Fury’s gonna be pissed.”

            “Good for him. Take your time, though. Gotta do some shopping today.” When Steve raised his eyebrows, phone already held to his ear and ringing (like Bucky couldn’t hear it anyway), Bucky said, “I’m not going to _start_ with a tree. And the aloe was going anyway when I got here.”

            Some intern was already taking, so Steve mouthed, “Stark works fast.”

            “Yeah, I know. But trees don’t grow that fast. I should get a cactus or something. No, those are low maintenance. I should start with… orchids.”

            “Yeah, I’ll hold,” Steve said. “Aren’t those really hard to grow?”

            “That’s the point. If I can keep one’a those alive raising a tree should be no problem.”

            So after Steve asked an intern to ask someone to start looking into other moneymaking endeavors for him- strictly for charity and pissing off bigots and spreading knowledge and stuff and with no press involved apart from the necessary kind- they went straight to the nearest nursery.

            Except nurseries didn’t really have clearance sections, and saving a dying plant was ten times harder than not killing one, and also Bucky didn’t think starting with the hardest plant on the planet was the best idea, so they ended up at the Home Depot, which Steve loved anyway on account of him having been there so many times for house stuff.

            They managed to fill half the truckbed with crap. Plenty was Steve’s, things he knew he’d need for yard maintenance and hadn’t thought to buy yet but figured he might as well. If it wasn’t for her training to sit in a little ball in the car, Rosie would’ve had to sit on the seat between them, because Bucky rode with all the plants in his lap.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit o sex talk regarding the Avengers being inconsiderate to Steve. Kinda came out of nowhere but I guess Steve wanted to remind us that he is still Doing Good Working Through His Issues even though this fic is also Bucky-centric. Next one might be split POV

            “You don’t have a fence.”

            Bucky shrugged.

            Tony stared. “You have a dog.”

            “A good dog.”

            “And security-related paranoia.”

            Bucky shrugged. “Not like we really have neighbors. And you gave him the windows, right?”

            “Yeah, but-”

            “And the basement’s a safehouse. So we’re fine.”

            Tony was suddenly halfway to the back door. “I have to see it for the thing- the device- the- whatever we’re calling it. You have to show me the basement so I know if the device will interfere. With it. Or any of your security, which I’m assuming you centralized in the basement?”

            Bucky rubbed his eyes, sighed, and followed Tony inside. “Fine. But I already know you know how not to crack our foundation, and last I checked you had security alerts in our house connected to your house, so don’t-”

            “Mother of god!” Tony was already downstairs. “Who invented a time machine and didn’t tell me?”

            Bucky laughed. He’d forgotten no one but Nat and Sam had seen the basement. “Sure as shit wasn’t Steve.”

            “I heard that!”

            “You’re in the office, Batman!”

            Tony turned to raise his eyebrows at Bucky. No _way_ he’d heard Steve, though he was probably smart enough to guess.

            “What? He’s got super hearing, the fuck else am I supposed to make fun of him for that?”

            “I’d go with Mothman. Matches his personality a lot better. But would you care to tell me how you did all this without involving me?”

            Bucky shrugged. Seemed to be doing that a lot. “Borrowed the shrinky machine from Hank Pym. The only thing I couldn’t get down here without it was the bar.” He may have used it to shrink things so Steve wouldn’t see them, but that was neither here nor there.

            “Traitor.” Tony walked around the room a little, paused at a wall to look at the pictures. “These real?”

            “No, I learned how to use photoshop and then lied to Steve.”

            “Okay, okay. Wow. But this must have been… really, really hard. Finding ones I didn’t see in history class growing up, or official Shield stuff.” Stark cocked his head at one of the oldest pictures; Steve and his ma, the only one Bucky’d been able to find of both of them. Couldn’t tell Steve was little, really, ‘cause he couldn’t be older than twelve. “Guess I didn’t know how married you two were. ‘Til death do us part level shit. How did you get these?”

            “Hard work. And I’m pretty sure the vow’s gonna be ‘til the end of the line, but close enough.”

            Tony raised his eyebrows, already halfway to the tech suite in the closet. “You two getting-”

            “No. Not yet. You think we could make it to a government building without a couple monumental panic attacks?”

            Tony strode back from the supply room, where he’d apparently had his tech re-sync with all of their tech in two seconds flat, and leaned against the bar. “You sure. Steve I don’t know. I mean, I hear he’s been doing great, what with the art and all, but him staying locked up is-”

            “Bad? Yeah. I know. Fury won’t let us leave, remember?” Short of routine journeys to normal places that were nowhere near tourist attractions or high traffic areas. In other words, therapy and Home Depot. Bucky was pretty sure if he found out they’d gone for ice cream Fury would come over to lecture them in person.

            “Right. Well, Christmas is crazy. Bound to be more chances to get out now people are swarming and distracted, right?”

            “I wish. Apparently holidays mean travel and tourism and nostalgia and-” Bucky waved his hand. “I don’t know. If you think you can get him to budge, why don’t you talk to him?”

            “A girl can dream. Try. Fine, I’ll try. Can you show me the dig site now?”

            They headed up and out, to stare at the hole Bucky had dug to Tony’s specifications.

            “Did you read the book?”

            “Of course I read the book.” Miracle he’d had time after they got distracted with all the Steve reading.

            “Movie?”

            “We, um-”

            “Damnit, Barnes.” Tony was now neck-deep in the hole. “Guess it’d be better at my house anyway. I have a projector.”

            “Our giant TV is fine.”

            “Giant? More like respectably-sized. That I respect. Don’t recommend it as a first viewing experience of the masterpiece that is Holes, though.” He pool-lifted himself out of the thing. “When am I coming back to install your giver of life?”

            Bucky shrugged. “Tomorrow? Later today? When are you free?”

            “Tomorrow works.”

            Bucky led the way back into the house. “Is that what you’re calling it?”

            “What, giver of life? No. Workshopping. Wait. I’m onto something. Jarvis, remind me about spray paint when we get back.”

            Benevolent though the AI may be compared to anything Hydra, it still freaked Bucky out. Glad he didn’t have to live somewhere where Stark was watching his every move (they only had security cameras outside, and Friday was only allowed to listen when she heard her name). “Is he wired into your ear?”

            “What? No. Yes. Kind of. He just sort of hears me. It’s like how most devices with microphones have them always a little on all the time even though people don’t realize it.”

            Bucky shuddered. “Ew. You didn’t lie about my phone, did you?”

            “Nope. I’m not even selling them. Authorized personnel only. You’ve got new tech in here, too, though, you know. New mics.”

            “Yeah, but they’re all down here. No TVs or anything upstairs, and all the downstairs crap’s you-encrypted then Nat-encrypted then me-encrypted.”

“Good point.” They’d made it to the entryway. Tony turned to the office. “Later, Capsicle.”

            Steve didn’t look up from what he was doing. On the computer, but looked art-related. “Love you, too, Tony.”

            “Don’t start any international incidents while I’m gone. See you at dinner. And watch the movie. It’s definitely early enough.” He looked like he’d be poking Bucky in the chest if that wasn’t 100% pushing some kinda boundary.

            Bucky saluted. “Yessir. Good morning, Mr. Stark, sir.”

            Tony rolled his eyes and went.

            After an uneventful dinner with Pepper and a few hours’ crappy sleep with Steve, Stark was back in their yard. “How long will it take to grow?”

            Bucky shrugged. “Hard to say. Though I’m hoping it’ll be recognizable as a tree by spring.”

            “If you need any help w-”

            “Tony?”

            “Hm?”

            “I’m good, thanks.”

            “Sure.” Tony rested his hand on top of Rosie’s head and continued to supervise his robots unloading the chunky metal disc thing into the ground. When it was done he said, “I got shit to do. If you can handle burying that.”

            “I dug the hole in the first place.”

            “Fair. Okay, everything’s hooked up to your phone, which I heard has a stable number now since you’re half on-grid again?”

            “Yeah.”

“Great. So everything’s through your phone and if you hook this up-” he shoved a metal box into Bucky’s hands “-downstairs you’ll have actual buttons to touch, since I know you’re into that, too.”

            “That’s Steve. I just like real buttons because I know how dangerous internet access is.”

            “That’s interesting. We should talk about that. See you next weekend. When we’ll talk about it.” Tony didn’t bother going back through the house- he just yelled, “Later, Steve,” and went through the side gate, leaving his robots to pack themselves and follow.

            Steve stepped onto the porch and stared at the metal thing in the ground. “Huh.”

            Bucky was already taking his sweater off and shoveling dirt. “Grass should grow back fast. Though we aren’t supposed to plant anything fragile right on top of it.” He’d got a bag of seeds on their gardening trip the other day. The actual tree wasn’t going on that exact spot, and there was no way in shit Bucky was putting a living baby tree at the mercy of tech before he trusted that tech worked as it should.

            Steve glanced around the yard for another second, then said, “Nose goes.”

            “Fuck. What?” Bucky looked up to find Steve with a hand on his nose, which meant Bucky already lost.

            “I’m not mowing the lawn in the middle of winter. I only signed up for the normal months.”

            Bucky snorted. “I should send Natasha a thank you note for teaching you that…”  
            “Pretty sure she got it from Clint, who got it from fourth grade.”

            “If you’re about to suggest I track down his teacher-”

            “No, no, of course not. Only meant you’d have to send more than one thank you note. Also that we would have learned that and a couple other things- apparently we missed heads up seven up, too- if we’d have been the right age for now anyway.”

            “We are the right age for now. I’m burying a ground-warming device in our backyard and you’re recording an audiobook about how bi you are.”  
            “Not ‘til we hear back from the author.”

            “Still.”

            A second later, “Do you think I can sue for bi erasure?”

            Bucky sighed a sigh he felt through his entire body. “You’re lucky I love you.”

            “I’d donate every dime I made,” Steve said defensively. Then, shit-eating grin lighting up his face, “But I know.”

*

            The ground stayed warm to the touch, in contrast to the frozen-solid front lawn and the frigid air that gusted constantly around the hot spot. When Bucky and Steve snuck to the tower (in one of Stark’s inconspicuous cars) for the next Sunday Avengers family dinner, Tony bombarded them with questions about the movie first, because Holes was a masterpiece and anyone who disagreed didn’t deserve to call themselves an associate of said Avengers.

Dinner itself was spent answering questions about the thing in their yard and how it was working so far; apparently Tony had left all but the vital tracking info out of his own information delivery out of respect for their privacy.

            “What kind of tracking tech could you possibly put in that thing-” Bucky began, but a kick from Steve under the table shut him up.

            Huh. Have to ask about that when they got home.

            “It’s nothing,” Steve insisted, the third time Bucky asked about it.

            “Bullshit.” Bucky went to sit at the kitchen table. So Steve would know he meant business.

            “Fine. But know you’re being ridiculous.” Steve sat across from him.

            “When am I not?’

            “Good point.”

            “I know. Now talk.”

            “It’s nothing you don’t already know.”

            “Steve.” He didn’t have as good a puppy-dog look as Steve and neither of them could hold a candle to Rosie on the occasion she really wanted something, but it must have worked anyway.

            “I’m the one who can’t get laid.”

            Bucky’s voice shot up about sixteen octaves. “What?” Well, yeah, it was half-true, but that didn’t mean- “And I thought joking about everyone’s sex life was written into the Avengers’ standard operating procedure.”

            “Normally, yes. But I’m the guy. The one on the team who’s always getting the shit end of the jokes.”

            “Come on. No. You have the best ass. Unquestionably. Not to mention how badly you roasted Nat the last time she tried to turn you into a punchline. And what does this have to do with a giant superheated hockey puck buried in our yard? Or sex?”

            “Wouldn’t put it past him. Stark. To use some freaky sonar technolog-”

            “Steve.”

            Steve went a little red. “Okay, fine. That one’s a little far-fetched. But I have decent reasons to not want to bring up personal shit around them. When it comes to my personal life they used to really suck.”

            Bucky put a hand over Steve’s on the table. “Are they actually assholes? Like, more than they let on?”

            “No, it’s more like… I always used to feel like a caricature around them, I don’t know. With how self-righteous I was supposed to be all the time. As Captain America.”

            “Steve-”

            “No, I acted the part, I know I did, most of their crap was justified, it’s just- I don’t want to feel that way again. Don’t need to. Retired. And for as funny as it was, it could get to be too much. Like how they’ve all placed bets on the status of my virginity.”

            Bucky filed that one away for later- no way he was letting people make Steve feel like shit if he could help it- and moved on to how absurd Steve’s example was. “I almost forgot about that one.” At the look of resigned self-pity on Steve’s face, Bucky snorted, because Steve was playing it up enough by that point for Bucky to know this wasn’t a serious emotional discussion. “Really have them convinced, huh?”

            Steve smirked. Oh, yeah. Very serious emotional discussion they were having here.

            But then- Bucky considered it. “I bet that’s the only thing you lie about. One way you live up to the image.”

            “I lie,” Steve said defensively, like it was something he should be proud of.

            Well. In their former line of work, maybe. “Sarcasm doesn’t count as lying.”

            “If sarcasm doesn’t count, you don’t lie, either.”

            Bucky could feel his confusion working itself out on his face.

            Steve’s tone softened. “I mean, when have you ever lied because you wanted to?”

            Bucky went blank. “Shit. I don’t know.”

            Steve looked a little startled at that. “You don’t have to-”

            “No, it’s not that I don’t remember. It’s that I can’t- I can’t remember a time, even though I remember plenty, that I’ve wanted to lie. Always felt terrible about it. Even when I shouldn’t have.” Bucky smiled bitterly at the reminder of the gut-twisting guilt after stealing blankets for a tiny asthmatic spitfire.

            Steve probably had some idea what he was remembering, because his voice came out sad when he said, “Oh.”

            “Guess I’m worthy of your patriotic devotion after all.”

            “Oh, shut up.” But Steve was smiling. Good.

            “I mean it, Stevie. All this time I thought I was the asshole in the relationship, when really it was you all along-” he cut off laughing.

            When Steve had gotten enough breath back to speak, “You think one of us woulda realized sooner. All the things you did for me… shut the press right up.”

            “Maybe we should.” Bucky got serious again. “Fury said I could do a real press conference before Christmas. If I want. Somethin’ about more good timing.”

            Steve froze. “Oh god.”

            Bucky went on alert. “What?”

            “We don’t have a tree yet.”

            Bucky relaxed into an exasperated sigh. “Steve, it’s been December for ten minutes-”

            “We need a tree.”


	3. Chapter 3

            Turned out Steve covering the house in Christmas stuff was kinda nice.

            Yeah, it meant they’d have to store the stuff in the attic or a closet or something, and yeah, it also cost enough to make even Bucky wince at the checkout, but all in all it was a decent deal. Because their house looked like the North Pole.

            Bucky’s therapist asked what Christmas had been like for him growing up, and his memories were hazy and nice until Steve, at which point his answer became one word: miserable.

            Oh, Bucky thought. _Oh_. All of Steve’s Christmases had been miserable. Which meant this one had to be really really really good.

            Bucky called Fury.

            “No.”

            “What?”

            “Barnes, I told you you could do a press conference. That’s it. And the thing with Steve is great. Him doing audiobooks, supporting causes, all that. It’s a great idea. But we are not throwing some giant Avengers Christmas party-”

            “Is that because you don’t want to pay for it or because you wouldn’t be able to come?”

            Fury sighed. “You and I both know Stark would pay for it.”

            “True.”

            “There isn’t room for anything like this in your public image right now.”

            “Are you sure?”

            Fury sighed again. “You know my time is valuable, right?”

            “I thought you were dead.”

            “Doesn’t mean I don’t run half this organization.”

            “Got a name yet?”

            “We’re working on it. Thanks for your concern. No Christmas party. Talk to Romanoff about the press conference.”

            “Too busy to handle top-secret me now I’m exposed?”

            “I don’t mean to underestimate you, but after that shit you pulled on Thanksgiving, I have very little doubt it matters who your liaison is at this point.”

            By the time Steve was done putting up everything they’d bought, it was December 6th and Nat had called approximately thirty times on Fury’s behalf to scold them about going to five Christmas stores a day. Lucky for them she was running interference, because, as Fury had established via phone call earlier in the week, he was too important to be answering to their every whim. Even though he still had time to ask Nat to yell at them.

            “Can’t you just cover our tracks for us?” Bucky whined into the phone as he watched Steve gaze triumphantly (and critically) at the tinsel on their tree.

            “Because that would break multiple laws and I too am trying to improve my image. Unfortunately I have to stop breaking the law for that.”

            “Damn shame.” Bucky aimed a light kick at Steve when said punk reached out to adjust something on the tree which did not need adjusting. “When are you coming over? Steve isn’t doing real school ‘til next semester, but I still put his stuff on the fridge and I need another person to see it to make me extra proud. Also I’m the only non-Steve who’s seen our house decked out for Christmas and if I don’t get confirmation soon I might start thinking I’m hallucinating.”

            Nat laughed. “Knowing Steve, you’re not. I have a little free time this weekend. Or… Well, I guess I can ditch the tower for you.”

            “Finally!”

            Natasha sounded amused. “Are you itching for company that badly or did you get half those Christmas decorations delivered and I missed the memo?”

            “The first one. No way Fury’d be this pissed if we were using Amazon. Now I’ve had a few days to think it over it’s gonna take a lot more than the wrath of a dead man to keep me outa the house.” Also Steve seemed on the brink of insanity before decoration palooza, but Bucky was pretty sure that went without saying. It was Nat, after all.

            Bucky’s behavior also had some element of recklessness in it; since the second he’d felt okay again he really had tried to go other places besides therapy, even if he was now also terrified of being recognized and leading the press back to Steve. Going places other than therapy felt right. Normal. Hell, good. Made him feel like he’d make it through the press nightmare okay. So he had to keep doing it.

            But leaving the house also risked everything he and Steve had built. Which meant that if it wasn’t for Bucky’s assassin training he’d have insisted on Skype therapy sessions and taken the Amazon suggestion to heart. If only that wouldn’t have doomed Steve to boredom as well. Because he stayed in the house most of the time, too, if Bucky had to, even if it was more from a twisted sense of guilt than actual obligation to keep him company.

            “Barnes?” Nat’s voice snapped him out of it.

            “Sorry. Just thinking. Be nice to have some interaction without having to draw as little attention to myself as possible. Got any ideas for the sleepover? Anything I need to have ready when you get here?”

            Nat paused, contemplative. Then, “I want a cake. A really nice cake. That’s all. See you Friday. Stay until Tony begs me to come home after Sunday dinner?”

            “Sure.” Bucky hadn’t known Nat was an official member of Sunday dinner, not because she wasn’t necessary to the group dynamic, but because since exposing Hydra she’d cancelled so often he had yet to see her at one. He wondered if Fury had ever been invited.

            “What are we doing this weekend?” Steve asked, finally looking away from the tree.

            “You heard that whole conversation. Nat’s sleeping over.”

            Steve shrugged. “Still. Kinda rude not to ask.” Holiday cheer was serving him well. Practically glowing.

            Mood was helping Bucky, too, if he was being honest. Nice to be cheerful against the cold. “What kinda cake we makin’ her?”

            Steve shrugged. “She gave us a few days to practice. Why don’t we just start now and go until we find one we finish eating on the spot?”

            “Your plan is good,” Bucky said, strolling into the kitchen, “but we can’t give away decent failures if we make whole cakes. Might I suggest-” he pulled out a cupcake tin.

            Steve sighed.

            “C’mon,” Bucky said with a grin. “We’ll bring them to our favorite gay friends. And the yarn co-op.”

            “That’s the same gay friends, not to mention our only ones we know of, and I raise you bi erasure.”

            Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Liberal use of an umbrella term on my part, but fine.” Then he had a brilliant idea. “This is the perfect way to make more not-straight friends.”

            Steve raised his eyebrows.

            “Giving away cupcakes makes conversation, and making conversation has the potential to spawn an experimental baking club. Or at least get to know more of the LGBTQ businesses in the area. Where we can find more gay friends.”

            “You don’t mind getting about a hundred more calls from Nat?” Steve asked as he got out the flour.

            “Nah. Worth it. Not to mention the least likely people to draw attention to us are the ones we’re seeking out.”

            Steve cocked his head, looked like he was thinking a long way back. Then, smiling, “You really did only go to queer bars when you went out alone, huh?”

            Bucky shrugged. “It was nice to socialize. Plus if I slipped and started talkin’ about my best guy, chances of being beaten half to death in an alley were about zero. Kinda nice.” Bucky pulled up All Recipes on his phone and searched for ‘best cake ever.’

            “Maybe when the media dies down we could go out.”

            “What, like... dancing?”

            Steve laughed. “Maybe. I don’t know. There’s always the basement.”

            Bucky looked up. “You know you’re amazing, right?”

            “Yeah, why?”

            “Because if people don’t rat out our new favorite joints, a few of them may be trustworthy enough to come over. For oldies night or something.” Though the thought of letting non-cleared personnel into their sanctuary sounded like a horrible idea, the fact that it was something he could _do_ now- entertain people in his and Steve’s house without having to pretend they weren’t together- was- it was-

            “You okay, Buck?” Steve’s eyes were wide.

            “Yeah. I’m fine.” Bucky was tearing up. “Just had one a those moments where I remember we’re in the future. Not bad- just- I can do this-” kissed Steve “-and still have people over.”

            “Once we’re ready to have people over.”

            How did Steve always do that? Know what Bucky was thinking and when Bucky needed him to say it because there was no way Bucky was going to and it wasn’t just for his sake they were being careful? “Yeah. In a year. Or something. Except for friends. Like Natasha. Who is expecting cake.”

*

            They baked for two days straight.

            Maybe it was luck, or maybe people had been recognizing them, but after staying in the house for three days (sans therapy trips and grocery runs), most news networks were beginning to speculate that Steve and Bucky had gone somewhere quiet and isolated- or maybe warm- for the holidays.

            Steve shook his head. “Quiet? Warm? How dare they.”

            Bucky laughed. He was putting the finishing touches on the icing of Nat’s cake. Despite his skill with drawing and painting, Steve insisted he couldn’t do 3D art for shit. Made sense why he’d begged off the yarn hobby. Bucky had done three scarves and was considering starting a blanket. If not for Jay insisting crocheting would actually be faster, he’d’ve gotten through a few skeins of blanket yarn already. Come to think of it, all the things he’d made so far were flat, and Steve didn’t have the three-dimensional excuse in that case, but whatever. “If I wasn’t worried about getting doxxed by some super-creep working for the media, I’d insist on restoring our dignity.”

            Steve stared at him for a long second, apparently choosing to take the comment for its serious edge instead of jumping on the opportunity to ask what dignity. “I know I’m the face of a greater yesterday or whatever, but you’d be ten times better on camera than me. Were, the few chances you got.”

            Bucky glanced across the hall at Steve, who was lounging on the sofa with the news on as he drew. Memories were tumbling over themselves in Bucky’s mind, clear close flashbacks from the press conference blurred by more distant ones, hazy smiles at the brave strangers who’d trekked out near the lines with their cameras, moments standing as still as possible while wedged next to the other Howlies, or some general or other, Steve always at his side. “Nah.”

            “I mean it.” Punk didn’t even look up from his drawing, acting all nonchalant and sincere like Bucky’s graphite reflection was the one he was arguing with. “You’ve always loved attention more than me. If I can’t be making positive change with it, I’d rather stay outa the spotlight altogether.”

            “Steve,” Bucky began evenly, “I love you. A helluva lot. As much as it’s possible to love another person, last I checked. But after sixty-plus years of having to ask permission to pee, any more outside attention than what I’ve got seems like overkill.”

            Steve’s face fell. “Sorry.”

            “Stop apologizing!” Bucky managed not to throw his piping bag at Steve’s head, but only just. “Making jokes is good. Unless you don’t like it, in which case-”

            “Just take some getting used to, is all. Been a few years since I’ve had...” Steve refocused on alive-Bucky and laughed. “You. Makin’ jokes or not. Love you, too, Buck.”

            Bucky walked over as Steve’s expression faded to a frown, pencil frozen over his sketchbook. “Let me see?”

            Steve sighed and turned the page to face him.

            “Wow.” It was a picture of Bucky working on the cake, leaning over it with a look of intense concentration on his face. “Do I really look that good when I’m trying to appease her majesty?”

            Steve smiled. “The blanket queen has notoriously high standards.”

            Bucky squeezed a line of frosting onto his finger and offered it to Steve, who did his duty as royal taste-tester while Bucky appreciated how much of the detail of Steve’s tongue he could feel thanks to his fancy arm. “I know ‘princess’ is kinda diminutive, but she was the one who nicknamed herself, didn’t she? Why’d she upgrade her title? Not that I begrudge her ownership of the house you built with your bare hands-”

            “Two reasons,” Steve said, taking the piping bag from Bucky and pouring a generous amount directly into his mouth. “One is that one, I guess. Marking her territory, I don’t know. Two is she doesn’t want to, and I quote, ‘steal the title from the daughter you two will inevitably have because girls are better and it would be an injustice to humanity for the two of you not to raise something.’”

            “Huh.” Bucky worked past the startled surprise at the thought of having a life with both kids and Steve, which he had yet to consider before that moment, and said, thoughtfully, slowly, “We do need more female role models in the family.”

            Steve got a weird look on his face. “You want kids?”

            Bucky realized he’d last seen that look when he’d asked Steve to move in with him. If it meant the same thing- and Bucky was pretty sure the look roughly translated to ‘this has to be a joke because never in my life did I think I would be so lucky as to be allowed to have _this’_ \- and he was guessing that’s what it meant now- shit. Bucky said the first coherent thing he could think of. “I’ve wanted kids since I mastered changing Becca’s diaper. If I could do that, I could handle anything else a kid could throw at me.” He blinked a couple times and focused on Steve, who was making a face one step away from gaping and still pretty much screaming ‘this cannot be real’ with his eyes. “Changing a diaper seemed like the hardest part. Even though I very much doubt that it is.”

            Steve exhaled and pulled Bucky full into his lap, expression changing from the disbelieving one to the unadulterated glowing joy that made Bucky want to stare at him forever. “You were a real good babysitter.” Steve wasn’t pushing. He was accepting it and letting himself believe it and believing Bucky. Steve didn’t doubt for a second that the reassembled person in front of him was qualified, and it was overwhelming. Bucky almost didn’t hear his next words. “Remember when you made a couple bucks that summer our landlady started the laundry business?”

            Bucky breathed and steadied himself with his hands around Steve’s shoulders and Steve’s around his waist. Real. This was real. “You and your ma. Lady who ran your building. Yeah. Of course I do. That was the most disposable income I ever had.” Bucky remembered that summer, baseball games in the massive alley behind the grocery store and dragging his charges across the street in a chain of linked hands. Steve always nearby with a pencil or a piece of chalk, smirking every time Bucky scolded one of the kids for something. “In hindsight I don’t think I was qualified for the job.” Any sense of ‘qualified’ being the wrong word, or of Bucky not being it now, flooded out of him through the places he was touching Steve, hands and shoulders and thighs and chests. Being qualified didn’t mean shit, Bucky knew, as long as you were trying. Steve was living proof.

            “Those kids made it home by dinner every night without a scratch on them. Say you did a pretty good job.”

            Bucky took a second. Thought seriously about it. You can do this, you would let yourself if you wanted it because you can do this... but do you want it? “I think I still want to. If you do. If we can even..” he trailed off. Not something they could have done before, short of some really weird circumstances and a handful of miracles besides.

            “Got the whole rest of our lives to figure it out.”

            “Yeah.” Bucky laughed. “Yeah, we do.” Because even though they were so old and so tired they were so young yet, had so many years to take back, and their bodies were not anywhere close to failing them, anywhere close to making them slow down for any reason but wanting to.

            Bucky felt lighter. Too light. Giddy, almost. He laughed again, kissed the tip of Steve’s nose, picked up the piping bag from where it sat forgotten on the couch and went to put Nat’s cake in the fridge. You’ve got time, Barnes, he reminded himself. You’ve got time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if you care but I'm setting this in 2016 since that makes sense. 'Cause I guess TWS was 2015? or something? and if I don't have some standard for dates this close to holidays and with weekly therapy to account for I will lose my noodle?

            Nat had suggested beforehand that it’d be better if she did the cupcake deliveries, given it’d attract a lot of attention and Bucky didn’t want to break his and Steve’s sane housebound streak. Also if Nat did it, on the slim chance anyone didn’t pass her screening, they wouldn’t be risking a damned thing revealing their identities to people. Nat insisted on leaving the second she arrived so as not to disrupt the exciting weekend she no doubt had planned for them. Her duffel bag was huge.

            They speculated while they waited for her to get back. “Knife throwing?” Bucky suggested.

            Steve eyed the bag with suspicion. “I hope not.”

            “Painting each other’s nails?”

            “Maybe. But the integrity of my art demands I only do my toes. And it’s winter, so...”

            “It may seem like there’s no point, but there is. You’ll know. I’ll know.”

            Steve grinned. “Didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.”

            Nat was back within the hour, carrying a pile of flyers and business cards and refusing to reveal how she’d gotten so much done in such a short amount of time. She dumped her spoils on the kitchen island and took a long look the cake, which they’d displayed on said island to achieve maximum impact when she returned. “Is that mine?”

            “As requested, my queen,” Bucky said. He maybe also rolled his eyes.

            “What are those?” Nat nodded to a plate of tiny unfrosted cupcakes.

            “Those are for Rosie.”

            “Oh, shit. I haven’t even said hello.” Nat collapsed out of view, presumably to invite Rosie over. Rosie clicked across the tiles towards her; a second later Nat’s arm flailed around above the counter. “Can I give her a thing or will it mess up the system?”

            Bucky threw her a tiny cake.

            Rosie made a noise of contentment.

            “What are we doing tonight?” Steve asked.

            Nat sprung back into view. “Lots of things.” She turned to her duffle, which was sat menacingly on the kitchen table. “How do you feel about scary movies?”

            “Depends,” Bucky said.

            “Hell no,” Steve said at the same time.

            “Hm.” Nat unzipped her bag and dug around in it. Sounded like DVD cases, though she was obscuring the contents with her tiny frame absurdly well. “What about 27 Dresses? Have you seen it, Bucky?”

            “No.” Then he turned to Steve. “Wait, when did you-”

            “It’s a romcom classic, Buck. Seen it like six times. Not opposed to watching it again.”

            While Bucky contemplated exactly how many romcoms Steve had watched without him, Nat asked, “You have a DVD player in the guestroom, right?”

            “Yeah. Even if we didn’t we could just move it. But why there?” Steve looked completely unruffled by Bucky’s scrutiny. Least the jerk could do was blush a little.

            “Because that’s where we’re sleeping and I have a special movie for after we scare the dickens out of you.”

            “Natasha-” Steve started.

            Bucky was about ready to interrupt himself, but Natasha raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. “You don’t have to pay attention. You can draw your husband the entire time. And if you trust me, which clearly you do since I’m in your house again and you’re letting me sleep here, you can still watch the movie because I’ll warn you when anything really spooky’s coming.”

            Steve hesitated. “Okay. But only if- we have to turn it off if-”

            “Of course.” Nat waited for Steve’s eyes to calm, then glanced around. “You weren’t kidding, Barnes. This place looks like a mall Santa’s lair.”

            “Told ya.”

            Nat strode towards the tree. “This place is great, get the snacks ready.”

            “What snacks?” Bucky asked.

            Nat stared at him. As if to say you can’t expect me to think you don’t have snacks.

            “I’ll make popcorn,” Steve sighed.

            Bucky went to go show Nat his plants, which were taking up all the ledge space in the family room windows so they’d have enough sun. Fifteen minutes later they were curled up on the sofa (no scary movies in bed, Nat wisely instructed), leaning together in a tense little ball even though all three of them knew it’d only make the scares worse. Steve was in the middle, holding the popcorn, and Nat said his name every time something was coming so Bucky’d have a heads up, too.

            After the first movie they ordered pizza, much fancier than the stuff Clint would’ve chosen, but delicious enough to make up for the ridiculous ‘business charge’ Nat put on her work card for it. While they ate they worked their way through everyone’s favorite YouTube videos, mostly Nat and Bucky showing new ones to Steve. Three of them made Bucky laugh so hard he cried.

            “Why didn’t you show me these sooner?” Steve accused while Nat darted back to the kitchen table to get the next movie.

            “You were busy. Also I may have watched half of ‘em waiting for appointments to start, so I just forgot.”

            “Oh,” Steve said. Then, “Memory not recovered enough to remember you can text me links on my fancy new phone?”

            “You don’t believe in watching things on a tiny screen.”

            Before they could get into it, Natasha returned holding up two movies. “Which one looks better to you?”

            They knocked out a couple more and ended the night with 27 Dresses, teeth brushed and tucked into the guest bed for the night. Steve was wedged in the middle, promising he didn’t care about sort of being in the gap between the two halves of the adjustable bed and promising that if the little foam bridge connecting them started to give way he’d just climb on top of Bucky. Rosie ended up curled on top of Nat’s feet, and all of them slept the whole night through.

            The next day they lounged around teaching each other braids and knots while watching The Princess Bride on loop. Bucky ended up with six friendship bracelets, one he made, three from Nat, and two from Steve. Nat even convinced Steve to let her do his fingernails with glitter, since all that would do if it chipped was “make your art better on the off chance you’re not the most gentle person on the goddamned planet, because let’s face it glitter improves everything.”

*

            Sunday morning Bucy awoke with a headache that pricked the corners of his vision red and made his whole body feel heavy.

            Steve let him lie about it so he could still go to dinner, though after a day spent in a stupor neither Steve nor Nat was fooled.

            Bucky sprawled on the sofa of the common floor, Rosie warm at his feet, head in Steve’s lap, focusing on the brush of Steve’s fingers though his hair as the others kept their voices low for his benefit. Stark tried about six times to get Steve to drag Bucky to a bedroom, but Steve held his ground, knowing better, and for that Bucky was grateful.

            Dinner itself went alright. Keeping his eyes open didn’t make the headache worse, and the calories helped. Bucky even chimed into the conversation a few times. When he made eye-contact with Sam, he could read Sam’s expression so well he almost teared up, because it said ‘you’re doing great and I’m proud of you’ even though nobody at the table save maybe Steve had a good reason to be anything but cold to him.

            By the time everyone was stretching and ready to leave, his headache was almost gone. Nat insisted she walk them back (wouldn’t be surprising if she crawled in bed with them; three supersoldiers had never slept more soundly). They were about to rise from the table when Tony said, “Hang on,” and everyone fell back down with a chorus of groans.

            “Sorry, know you all have sleep to get. But there’s an important Avengers meeting tomorrow. Even the geriatric duo’s invited.”

            The table stared at Tony.

            “What? We’re finally all in one place for a change, and we need to go over some stuff with Fury. And Hill. And you, Nat, because I heard you were getting a promotion, which, congratulations by the way-”

            “Save it,” Nat said. “I’m gonna end up with five times as much work and a tiny sliver of the field work. Wouldn’t necessarily call that a promotion.”

            Tony snorted. “Tell that to your paycheck. Anyway, since we’re all in town for at least a few more days, we need to have a real meeting. You know. Business. Or humanitarianism, or whatever it is we do. Sure as hell not governmental. Apart from the presence of one and a half government officials. And one dead one.”

            “Half?” Nat asked with raised eyebrows.

            “Shush. But anyway. I know you all know it’s an open invitation to say here, but I thought I’d remind you, especially since the meeting’s at seven in the morning-”

            Mass outrage.

            “Can we come in pajamas?” Clint asked.

            Tony stared. “I’d expect nothing less. But you haven’t let me get to the point. You should all just stay here, since half of you are staying anyway, and I’ve had Jarvis stocking Rosie’s food for… a while.”

            Everyone turned to look at Bucky and Steve.

            Steve turned to Bucky. “Will your plants be alright?”

            Bucky leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. “They can go a day without me staring at them for hours. No way in hell I’m getting up early enough to commute.”

            Stark clapped his hands together. “Okay. Boring shitty sleepover it is, then, since I’m hoping you’ll all get some sleep instead of, um… pillow fights, or whatever it is you do when I’m holed up in the lab during sleepovers.”

            “It’s not a real sleepover if you’re not also there,” Sam pointed out. “I’d call those more half-ass movie nights.”

            “Right. Cool. Anyway. I’ll be in the rec room arguing with Bruce if you need me. Avengers dissemble.” Tony stood, shot a pointed look at Bruce (who looked resigned to finishing whatever argument they must’ve been having before dinner), and strode out.

            Bucky turned to Steve. “Looks like we’re sleeping here tonight. ‘Least I won’t have to make you breakfast at six in the morning.”

            “When was the last time you were up-”

            “Fine, looks like I won’t have to make you _second_ breakfast at nine in the morning. Or ten. Or whenever the hell it is I’m up that day depending on what I have to do.”

            Sam shook his head. “I envy you. Tony’s got me up at four some mornings just because he needs the precision of human hands to help him with a project. Worse than a newborn baby sometimes, I swear.”

            “I didn’t realize you were familiar with newborns,” Thor said slowly.

            “Nieces and nephews, Thor. I slept more around their five-week-old asses than I have since I moved into this tower.”

            “No one’s asking you to get up and help me,” Tony said in a tone that suggested reason even though everybody present knew he possessed no such thing. “You can switch your phone to emergency mode anytime you want, man.”

            Sam shrugged. “Handful of times I’m awake anyway. Really I just want to know whatever crazy shit you’re working on on the off chance it makes it through the lab doors.”

            “That was _one time_ -”

            Bucky leaned into Steve. “Wanna go to bed?”

            Steve yawned. “You bet.”


	5. Chapter 5

            Except Nat followed them out. And apparently all it took for Nat to get on them like a pushy grandmother was a single mention of children in her presence.

            If it didn’t end up leading Bucky to the best Christmas present idea ever for Steve, he woulda been annoyed about it.

            “So when are you two having a baby?”

            Steve blushed immediately. “We’re not- where’d you-”

            “Yeah, Steve,” Bucky added, turning to him, because damn if he was going to pass up the opportunity to harass Steve, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t been discussing it a few days ago, anyway, “when _are_ we gonna have a baby?”

            Steve switched from shocked to smartass in a heartbeat. “When one of us gains the biological ability to-”

            It was Nat who interrupted him that time. “Oh, knock it off, Rogers, we’re in the twenty-first century. And you can adopt. Might be a better idea than passing on your nuclear DNA, since, you know, Bruce still hasn’t figured out whether or not that’ll carry over.”

            Steve crossed his arms. “That’s kind of the point.”

            Nat stepped up to him and shoved him. “So adopt.”

            “Buck and I aren’t even married yet.”

            “It’s not nineteen fifty-three, Steve. It’s legal now, not like you don’t have an excuse-”

            Bucky hadn’t given the marriage angle much thought, which he probably should have since Steve was a hopeless romantic and had proposed to Bucky roughly sixteen times before it was legal, so, “Yeah, it’s legal now, what the fuck are we doing here, _not married_ -”

            “Okay!” Steve flung his hands up in surrender. “Bucky, will you marry me?”

            Bucky frowned. “Well, yes, but-”

            “No ‘well yes but,’ that’s all I needed to hear.” And Steve turned on his heel.

            “Hey, wait! You can’t propose to me and then just storm out-”

            “I’m not storming out. I have things to do.”

            Nat sighed. “This is bullshit, you two deal with this on your own.” She could smell a serious conversation from a mile off. Could always come back to crash in their room later anyway. “But remember, you don’t need to be married to have a baby now. Like I said, not nineteen fifty-three-”

            “Woulda been the forties!” both Steve and Bucky yelled at her back as she walked away.

            Then Bucky was glaring at Steve. “What kinda fuckin’ proposal was that?”

            Steve held up his hands, placating. “You said we never discussed it because I kept making excuses, which I did. Sorry. Now we have discussed it, and we’re in agreement, so-”

            “Like hell we’re in agreement.” Bucky crossed his arms to let Steve know he was settling in for a good long argument. “I’m not letting _that_ count as a proposal. Shit, Steve, just for that, you don’t even get to do it. You want to get married? Fine. I get to ask you.”

            Steve smiled. “So? What you always wanted anyway, right? What’s the problem?”

            It was true. For as many times as Steve had sprung the impossible question on him- year after year after goddamn year- Bucky'd never had a chance to say it himself. “The problem is that you’re an asshole,” Bucky said, but his shoulders were already relaxing; he’d seen Steve ready to fight for a good twenty years straight, so he could tell Steve wasn’t gonna give him one this time. Maybe he figured after all the proposals he’d tried to make Bucky it was reasonable enough he give him this one.

            It’d be a miracle if the two of them got through a proposal without starting another international incident by mistake. Make for a damn good Christmas, though, if Bucky could do it right. They were only a week into December. He’d have plenty of time to plan it, and Steve would have plenty of time (or enough, Bucky was not giving up the Christmas thing) to forget Bucky’s promise. Or at least stop expecting Bucky to spring it on him before Bucky was sure he had all the details right.

*

            The details turned out to be more complicated than they might have been a few decades ago.

            For one thing, Steve had really really liked the basement, which meant proposing somewhere that felt like home to them in time as well as place was gonna be important. Bucky would have to search every inch of the city and scour his memories for a place like that outside, not to mention all the attention it’d draw. He could do it in the basement, but that felt too much the same to him. Their house would be wonderful, but impossible to set up without Steve noticing.

            Bucky was also pretty sure the proposal might make Steve get so mushy he was ready to finally have sex again, which, while Bucky was pretty much prepared for it, did not bode well for their respective months of remodelling if they worked their way up from slow soft stuff to desperate, first-time-in-almost-a-century fucking.

            That pretty much left the tower. That’d still look modern sixty years from now.

            Bucky steeled himself, called Nat, and left Rosie at home- both under the pretense of some friendly training plus Nat’s familiarity with him and her ability to get him out of any situation if they got derailed from their task. Which was buying things to deck out the common floor of the tower to look like it belonged in the decade they came from and also looked like a place Bucky’d want to propose to Steve in.

            Some things were self-explanatory for ambiance- low light, nice clothes, etc. Others weren’t. Bucky and Nat were wandering around the biggest store Bucky’d ever been inside looking for things to make the tower feel more homey. By the time they’d made it through half the store, Bucky had gotten through explaining most of his plan to a way-too-interested (well, no, but she was the Black Widow, any excess of expression was startling from her) Nat.          “Oh my god, he’s gonna love it. He’s gonna cry.”

            “I know!” Bucky said happily. ‘Giddily’ might have been a better word. Bucky was giddy.

            They were standing in the middle of a massive department store picking out curtains, of all things, as Bucky described to Nat in intimate detail how he was going to deck out the common floor of the tower with the most romantic shit he could find, including candle light only and rose petals all over the goddamn floor. He woulda really loved to do it in the house if not for the Rosie/fire hazard/lack of surprise trifecta. On top of the sex thing, which he was pretty sure Nat inferred.

            Bucky was also planning on procrastinating so long Steve almost thought he was gonna lose his nerve and not propose. But Bucky knew that Steve knew that Bucky wasn’t gonna lose his nerve. So it’d just make the moment that much sweeter when they finally got to it.

He’d need to make sure they were stocked with food and lube so he and Steve really could hole up there until Christmas if they wanted- Bucky'd already asked Tony to confirm that he was having Christmas on his and Pepper’s floor, and yes, Bucky could steal the common floor indefinitely. The logistics had been the easy part.           

            The hard part was picking out fucking curtains because Tony didn’t believe in real curtains and Bucky was trying to make a glass and metal box of an apartment look straight outa forty-two. Which he could not accomplish without some curtains.

            “Wish I’d saved the damned basement for this.”

            “Hang on,” Nat said slowly, “You’re gonna do it in the tower?”

            “We’ve been over this, Nat. Of course I’m doing it in the tower. I already surprised him, like… how many Hawkeye paintings do we have? Six? Seven times in our house, and the whole basement, there’s no way he’s falling for it another time. Plus Rosie. Plus I’m not setting my house on fire.”

            Nat kept looking at curtains all innocently as she said, “I bet you’re doing it there because you think the sex’ll be so inetense you’ll break Steve’s house.”

            “Hey!” Bucky turned on her. “Our house! And yours, last I checked, blanket queen. And yeah, fine, that might have been a consideration, but if you think for one second I’m doing this for a reason other than I’m not breaking Steve’s fucking heart right after we start fucking again-”

            “That was soap-opera level dramatic, Barnes. You should act. I’m serious. Where do we get you an audition in this town?”

            “I don’t know, I’m old, remember?” Bucky dropped the curtains he was holding and huffed a sigh. “This is ridiculous. Who needs fifteen colors of the same fabric?”

            Nat shrugged. “People, apparently.” Then her eyes went wide. “Oh, shit. You really are gonna have sex in the tower. You’re covering all Tony’s tech with camera-blocking curtains.”

            “If that was the first time again Steve would kill me.”

            Nat grinned. “You mean you’ve already done it or Steve’d hate the cameras too?”

            “Oh my god,” Bucky said. “Why did I bring you for this?”

            “Because I’m the only one who can keep a secret.”

            Right again. “Point taken. If anyone finds out about this- Tony included- I’ll have your head on a spike in the middle of the fountain.”

            She was beaming. “But you’d never do that to Steve.”

            “Why are we friends with you?”

            “You totally haven’t yet.”

            “ _Why am I friends with you?”_ Bucky repeated with emphasis.

            “If you two’d done more than fooled around you would have mildly broken Steve’s house. Which I hope he knows is gonna happen. Oh shit, wait, not if he tops. Super soldier sex is so complicated.”

            “Nat?”

            “I’m speaking from experience. Bruce wouldn’t even let me take my bra off until I agreed to t-”

            “Nat!” He must have been red or something, because she shut up. “Thank you. Curtains?”

            “Right away, Captain Chastity, sir.”

            Bucky snorted. “Think again. Broke a few pieces of furniture _before_ genetic enhancement.”

            “Ha!”

            Bucky blinked.

            “Knew I’d get you to say something.”

            “How was that even a victory for you?”

            Nat laughed and flipped her hair over one shoulder. “Steve won’t say shit. I know he’s got the filthiest mind of all the Avengers ever, retired or not, including Tony’s dad, and somehow every time I try to get him to move from       mock-bragging to proof he shuts his mouth so fast you’d think he was hanging out of a moving car.”

            “Gross.”

            “Exactly.”

            Bucky went over to the next round of curtains and tried to imagine them in Depression-era Brooklyn. “I know Steve’s face is, like, a picture book for you, but how can you tell?”

            “Tell what?” When Bucky just stared, Nat relented. “It’s because he always looks at you like you hung the moon, except- something- he hesitates. Like he’s afraid he’s somehow going to fuck it up.”

            “And you think that has to do with sex?”

            “Not by a long shot.”

            “Oh.” Bucky dropped the curtain he was holding and stared at the floor. “Oh.” After all this time- only a few months but god Steve had to know they- he’d really thought Steve was feeling _comfortable_ again, and yet- “He doesn’t think I mean it.”

            “I wouldn’t say that.”

            Bucky shook his head. “Same difference. Can’t believe after a century of bullshit it’ll take something we couldn’t even do before-”

            “That’s the point.”

            Bucky looked up.

            “Steve couldn’t hold this as a standard because it wasn’t something you could ever have. Now that it is, that doesn’t mean you want it. Just because you can doesn’t mean it means the same thing to you as it does to Steve.”

            “And for as much as he trusts me not to lie about it it can’t be real until it’s happened.”

            “Exactly.”

            “Idiot,” Bucky said. “I’m marrying an idiot.”

            “He hasn’t said yes yet.”

            “Oh my god, Natasha-”

            Bucky wasn’t completely unprepared for this. Steve did it a lot- thinking things were too good to be true. Not believing in them since he was a scrawny asthmatic who hardly ever had a good thing happen to him, so why would x good thing be any different. It made Bucky sick that Steve would ever feel that way about him, even though it was more than justified. Hadn’t exactly shown up on Steve’s doorstep as reliable as he’d had to be behind a sniper rifle.

            Bucky’d have to leave no doubt in his mind. So he’d never have to see that look again- Steve's happy controlled one that meant hesitation, caution, uncertainty. Appreciating something for the moment because it might not last. Steve used to be the one thing Bucky could be sure of, and he was almost certain he’d been that for Steve; he wanted to never stop being that. Here for good.

            “These curtains are not proposal material,” Bucky said finally, and started for the exit. Maybe a certain yarn-peddling friend would be able to point him in the right direction.


	6. Chapter 6

            Bucky chose December 17 to plant his tree.

            He wasn’t sure exactly why that felt like the right date. The ground was warm, there was grass on it, nothing had caught on fire, and Bucky knew it’d take weeks to sprout and he didn’t want to have to wait ‘til February for it to come up. It’d also mean he had working on the proposal and then holing up in bed with Steve for days on end to distract him from staring at a patch of warm dirt in his yard. Really it was perfect timing.

            Stark assured him that the thing would be okay, since willows did fine in warmer climates. As long as he didn’t let the ground dry out- which was hard enough in New York in a sadly not-yet-snowy winter- his baby’d be growing roots in no time.

            Far from being jealous of the tree, Rosie came out while he planted and helped him as he sat guard for a while, lying next to him as Bucky sprawled on the ground with a hand resting on the earth, whispering things to the seeds. He and Nat had gotten most of the shopping done in a few days and all Bucky had to do now was wait ‘til it was time to go set it all up. So much for having a reason not to watch a patch of dirt.

            More than once over the past few days Bucky’d been out in the yard, trying to make the rest of it look halfway decent for when his tree finally came up, and felt Steve come out behind him, just standing and watching. When Bucky finally turned to see Steve he had an expression on his face torn between that horrible moderated wonder Bucky hated so much and- god, he didn’t know. He'd seen Steve look at... seen Steve look at Peggy like that, once or twice. No one else, ever. Never him. Never Buck. Only Peggy. Whatever that second thing was, that surge of a brighter surer feeling than the certainty of fleeting goodness Steve had learned to hold onto in the face of illness and death and war and _time_ \- that second emotion had never been directed at Bucky until then.

            Steve came out and did it when Bucky planted the seeds; he spent hours outside that time, the whole morning. When Bucky had smiled through lunch with Steve and still felt like there was a sucking pit somewhere inside him saying no no no no you can’t be that for Steve you could never, Bucky went out.

            Steve wanted to go with him, but Bucky knew Steve had his last community art class that day and there was no way Bucky was letting Steve miss that. Especially for something Bucky was pretty sure he needed to do alone.

            They headed out, Rosie on Bucky’s left and Steve on his right, making it to the end of the block before they parted ways. For a strange second they stood staring at each other on the sidewalk, having to cross paths to do it but never really having had a moment like this. Bucky laughed. Months with Steve already and stupid house arrest had made sure they’d never done this, never split off from each other on a walk because it wasn’t worth leaving the house if both of them weren’t going somewhere and Steve may like to keep Bucky in his sight when he could but hell if Bucky didn’t like doing the same.

            God they were fucked up.

            Well. Not really. Actually pretty normal, what they were doing. Bucky was on a walk and Steve was headed to art class for chrissakes.

            “This is ridiculous,” Bucky muttered.

            Steve smiled. “Be more ridiculous if we’d been holding hands.”

            “Here, then,” Bucky said, and grabbed Steve’s hand with his free one.

            Steve stepped in close. “You just made it harder.”

            Bucky laughed. There wasn’t much foot traffic around where they lived, and the few people that did pass seemed to have more pressing concerns than two dumbass neighbors’ PDA. Bucky let go of Steve’s hand and grabbed his neck instead, pulled him down into a quick kiss. “See you at home, baby.”

            Steve was beaming. “Love you.”

            “Love you, too.” Bucky managed to pull off switching their sidewalk positions pretty well considering he had a service dog.

            “Still graceful even though you’re goin’ on a hundred.”

            “Shut up, Rogers!” But Bucky was smiling as he walked away.

            He didn’t know where he was going until he got there. The yarn co-op, even though all he had on him was his wallet and a pocketful of incidental stuff he needed around for Rosie.

            “Welcome. Oh, hey, Bucky. Long time no see.” It was Jay.

            Bucky went straight up to the counter and jumped up to sit on it, letting go of Rosie so she could relax. “I forgot all my work like an idiot.”

            “You are not an idiot. I don’t spend time with idiots.” Jay pulled a cup from the counter behind them and offered it to Bucky. “What’ll it be?”

            Bucky picked a hook, same size as the needles he used for the yarn he had at home. “Teach me to crochet?”

            It took so much concentration, learning exactly how to hold the hook and twist the yarn, what the difference was between a slip stitch and a single or double and all the other ones Jay promised weren’t useful yet and were confusing to everybody. The pit had returned to Bucky’s midsection on the walk, like he knew it would; working with Jay eased it, distracted him from it.

            Got a lot on your mind?”

            Bucky had finally found a rhythm, which Jay had obviously noticed. “Yeah. Proposing to Steve.”

            Jay dropped their hook. “What?”

            Bucky glanced up. “Basically married already anyway. Isn’t that what your uncles did? When it became legal?”

            “Yeah,” Jay said, resuming their work. “I guess. I just thought- I don’t know. It seemed different. Shouldn’t have. You’ve been together longer than they’ve been alive. Just... seems kinda new, the way you talk about each other.”

            Bucky could understand that. Hadn’t been together long _again_ , really; so many things were still new. “Seen Steve much lately?”

            Jay laughed. “Nope. Though I guess it’s his fault I’m thinking of you in the honeymoon phase- he talks about you a lot.”

            Bucky shook his head. Of course Steve’d say things about him that stuck in some random kid’s head. Romantic punk. “Steve’s at class. Guess if it was the same one you were in you’d be gone right now.”

            “Probably. This place may not be making half as much as the repair shop, but we definitely got enough cash for more than one employee.”

            Bucky glanced around, taking in the jam-packed shelves while his fingers, finally, finally, did some crocheting without his eyes’ supervision. “I’ve been going a little stir-crazy lately.”

            “I can only imagine. Gotta be worse than finals. At least when there’s a test you have something to prepare for. Though I’d guess you’re going all-out for the proposal.”

            Bucky snorted. “Can’t really do much when we’re still hiding from cameras. But yeah, I planned it special. Figure we’ve got a lifetime of anniversaries for all the fancy food and hotels and cutesy couple stuff.”

            Jay raised their eyebrows. “Cutesy couple stuff?”

            “Yeah.” Bucky shrugged. “Amusement parks, museum dates, trips to the hardware store where we don’t have to try to hide our faces so much, that kinda crap.”

            “I thought Ikea was more of a coupley thing than Home Depot.”

            Bucky shook his head. “Steve built that house from a patch of dirt. Picked every bit of the furniture out himself. No way boxy new furniture’s more of a couple thing than buying a power washer, least where we’re concerned.”

*

            The day before was a bad day. Bucky figured. Between him and Steve skipping therapy that week for holiday time with the assembled Avengers, it was no wonder they were so twisted up about it.

            Took Bucky ten whole minutes to put it into words. “You know those days when you grate on yourself- when the incapability you feel makes itself true though the fear of it?”

            Steve nodded.

“Having one of those days right now.”

            “Is there anything I can do?”

            “Nah, doll. Just sit with me. Being with you makes me feel better.”

            Steve smiled. “I used to say that to you.”

            “Yeah,” Bucky said, and leaned his head on Steve’s shoulder. “Now it’s my turn.”

            “Your turn to be poetic, too.”

            “Didn’t have a library in ’39.”

            Steve hummed.

            Bucky texted Friday to text Jarvis to make sure everything was ready. He’d set it up two days before, so he knew it was ready except for lighting all the candles and cooking and making sure his orders to stay off the common floor until Christmas damnit I mean it were being followed. Tony had some decorations and a tree up- or more likely Clint had some decorations and a tree up, because he was fucking off to Iowa for the holiday and wanted to leave something nice for them all- and the place was as supersoldier-proof as ever.

            Waiting was almost always the worst part of anything. It shouldn’t have been, because he knew it was going to turn out okay. No way in hell Steve wasn’t gonna say yes. Bucky was the one who hadn’t believed in marriage. Steve could say whatever he wanted about social manipulation and abstinence from taking advantage of incompletely distributed rights, but they hadn’t exactly grown up in a time when half the population was rebelling against the romanticized business arrangement that landed rings on most people’s fingers. Bucky had to take the position he did because he knew he wasn’t going to see that right get extended to him in his lifetime. That was okay. He accepted that.

            But Steve had a chance. He’d pretended he hadn’t. Bucky still shipped off thinking he was gonna die and never see Steve again. Unless by some miracle Bucky ended up in the good part of the afterlife, in which case he prayed it’d be eighty years and plenty of grandchildren before Steve ended up there too. More than likely Bucky would be a fond sad memory of the love Steve almost couldn’t convince Bucky was real- the opposite of how it was now. Steve’d had this confidence, a streak of not arrogance but steadiness that allowed him to believe in the thing he and Bucky had even though he refused to believe most other good things in their lives were real. That was part of the reason Bucky was able to be okay with it, them together, even if Steve’s inability to shout their love from the rooftops in the most real way either of them knew- with a ring- meant Bucky’d never have that affirmation. He knew Steve loved him, and that was enough. More than enough. Ring didn’t mean a damn thing when he knew he had Steve ‘til the end of the line no matter what.

            It’d helped that he knew Steve was too stubborn to let life get him down. He’d live as happy and long as he could. That was consolation enough, in a war. ‘Cause at least if Bucky wasn’t gonna make it back he was dying for something.

            And then he hadn’t died and they’d ended up there. You have Steve, he’s got you, it’s over, you’re safe now.

            But what if he says no?

            “Hey, Steve?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Distract me?”

            “How?”

            “Let’s play Scrabble.”

            They played sixteen games. Bucky won all of them.


	7. Chapter 7

            Then it was only a few days before Christmas, since Bucky wanted to give them plenty of time to be all sappy and gross with each other before they had to march down to Christmas dinner. Actually, it wasn’t going to be dinner so much as a daylong food fest, but either way, Bucky’d be damned if he and Steve didn’t at least have a chance to get thoroughly sick of each other before then.

            “Where are we going?” Steve asked, getting in the car anyway.

            “Surprise party for your 98th Christmas.”

            “That’s total bullshit, but I trust you enough to go along with this.” When they pulled up to the secret elevator Steve didn’t say anything; when they got in, when Bucky pressed the button for the common floor, he didn’t say anything. Maybe he did think it was some kind of party.

            Except when they got there the floor was empty, silent but for the low hum of music coming out of the hidden speakers. In the end he’d gone with red curtains, because he and Steve were nothing if not a gay Lifetime movie couple. Candles sat everywhere, flames kept safe by plain glass votive holders that softened the light at the edges and made the place feel almost like part of some sixteenth-century castle; a little cold, a little sparse, drenched with light and warmth by fire and more fake rose petals than Bucky coulda counted. The table was ready, and the fridge stocked, though Bucky didn’t feel much like eating; he was torn between wanting to throw up and wanting to burst out laughing.

            When he looked up it was to find Steve’s face frozen in that steady feeling Bucky had been convinced until this moment he didn’t deserve. “Buck.”

            “Steve.” Bucky was crying. That wasn’t part of the plan. “Did I surprise you?”

            “Sure did.” Steve followed him deeper into the room, petals rustling underfoot.

            “I wanted to make this a good Christmas.”

            “Yeah,” Steve said shakily. “But I thought it was already good.”

            Bucky smiled, sucked in a breath, and willed his eyes to hold back on crying for just a minute so he could look at Steve while he said this. “Every time I tried to figure out what I wanted to say to you I came up short, ‘cause the things I want to say most are rooted so deep I knew when we got to this moment I’d end up telling you what was in there, anyway. I love you. Always have and always will. And I want to marry you, because I can, and because I know how much it means to you. But you need to know something, Steve: wedding band or not, I’m with you ‘til the end of the line. I mean it. I ain’t going anywhere. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. And I want to tell everyone.” He laughed. “Already did, sort of. But this way- if this is what it takes to convince them, they’re about to be convinced. I plan on spending at least seventy years with you. Long as we’re both still breathing and after that, too. Make up for the years we woulda had, have more years, better years. I’m staying. I need you to know that. The marriage part’s nice, but I need you to know that I’m here, no matter what. Okay?”

            “Yeah, Buck.” Crying so hard he probably couldn’t see, sucking in breaths quiet as he could so Bucky had a chance to finish. “Okay.”

            Bucky got down on one knee. “I know you agreed, but I gotta ask. Steven Grant Rogers, will you marry me?”

            Steve pulled him up into a kiss. So sweet and full of love Bucky was crying too. “Yes.” Steve was breathless. “Of course I’ll marry you, James Buchanan Barnes.”

            Bucky smiled. “Had to even it out, huh?”

            “Ahh, shut up.” Steve smiled into another kiss. “Anyway, you started it.”

            “Do you want a ring?”

            “Don’t need one. Though I wouldn’t mind letting everyone know I was taken.”

            Bucky laughed and kissed him again. “God I love you.”

            “Love you too.” Three kisses, quick. “Anything else you got planned for tonight?”

            Bucky kissed him slow and filthy. “Just this. If you want.”

            “Are you talking about making out or are you tryin’ to tell me something?”

            Bucky laughed. Asshole. “Hey, Steve, wanna have sex?”

            “Now?”

            “Now.”

            “Yes.”

            “Good. Booked us a room.”

*

            “Hey, Steve.”

            “Hey, Buck.”

            They were in their room on the common floor, and it’d been too sweet for either of them to break anything, but if Steve’s love-drunk expression was anything to go by he’d be willing to make another attempt in a few minutes. Bucky couldn’t stop staring. “I could look at you forever.”

            “Mmm, that’s my line.” Steve leaned in for a kiss, soft and unhurried but promising hunger underneath.

            “Seems like you’ve been drawing from life more often lately.”

            Steve’s languorous muscles tightened the slightest bit, the wave of energy pulling his lips into a smirk. “I haven’t had an opportunity this good in a while.” He reached for the bedside table, found the drawer, pulled out a sketchbook.

            “That’s my Steve. Always prepared.”

            The smirk grew wider; Bucky was pretty sure he’d only ever used that wording in a sexual context, and Steve’s expression confirmed it. Eyes resting full on Bucky, seeing farther into him than anybody ever could, “Don’t know if this is the best vantage point.”

            Bucky put on his best sultry smile and leaned back to stretch, letting the blanket slide further down his abdomen. “M’not much of an artist. Got any suggestions?”

            “Blankets are hard to draw.” Steve was gazing at him with appreciation, but studying, too, tracking the lines of him and waiting for them to settle.

            Bucky kicked off the covers and threw his hands behind his head. “Do you mind drawing relaxed muscles? Know contrapasso’s more fun.”

            Steve’s eyes flitted down his torso and back up to his face. “Long as you try not to move, shouldn’t be a problem.”

            “I’ll do my best.” Bucky closed his eyes, felt the familiar gaze tracing his skin. Rises and dips and curves feeling more solid under that look than they had almost ever. Steve drawing him reminded him he was real, not in a memory way, but in a human way. It always had. When Steve was drawing him he knew he was there, knew he had a place and that it was right underneath Steve’s look. Right where he was supposed to be. Times Steve wasn’t there it was a lot harder to feel that. Impossible, really, because Bucky knew he should be where Steve was and even though he’d never wanted Steve to end up in Europe at least then they were together.

            Minutes passed, or hours. Bucky could feel Steve’s concentration building as he worked. The feeling heated him from the inside, arousal slowly creeping along his skin in response to Steve’s intensity. By the time he was hard again, the sound of Steve’s pencil had become infrequent. Bucky cracked an eye open. “Am I messing up your sketch?”

            Steve huffed a laugh and didn’t say anything, still too focused. Bucky shut his eye and basked in the feeling.

            A few quick pencil strokes later he shifted, set the sketchbook aside; Bucky felt Steve lean over him. “Can I touch you?”

            “Lucky I let you wait this long,” Bucky said, grinning.

            “Let me take care of you?” Steve’s breath tickled his abdomen.

            “Take your time,” Bucky said. When Steve’s fingers on his cheek coaxed his eyes open, he added, “I’m in no rush. You’re always so careful with me-” he cut off at Steve’s noise, half-laugh, half-whimper.

            “Buck.”

            “Stevie.”

            “Do you want-?”

            “Tell me where you’re going. Tell me where you’re going and I’ll be alright.”

            Steve started to trial kisses slowly down his jaw, the side of his neck, across his collarbone.

            “That works, too,” Bucky breathed.

            He could feel Steve smiling in the next few kisses.

*

            The common floor had been abandoned pending further notice; Bucky left the door open as they slept, dawn to noon, so when Rosie finally needed something she’d be able to wake him.

            She never did. Bucky opened blurry eyes at 12:38 to find sunlight streaming through the crack in the blackout curtains, Steve still fast asleep. “Rosie?”

            She trotted into the doorway.

            “You okay?”

            A tail wag. Smart enough to be left with her food out and know not to down it in ten seconds, Bucky was sure. She looked perfectly content.

            Bucky looked around and hissed a laugh at the mess they’d made of the room despite having left the furniture in mint condition.

            “What?” Steve mumbled into the pillow.

            “Didn’t say anything.”

            “You made a noise.”

            “Did I?” Bucky turned to find Steve staring up at him.

            “You did. F’I didn’t know any better I’d’a called it a squeak.”

            Bucky narrowed his eyes. “We have to at least dump all this in the laundry before we go.” His stomach reminded him of all the sex he’d been having. “And eat.”

            “I’ll clean up if you make breakfast?”

            “Deal,” Bucky said, and headed for the hallway.

            “Gonna put on any clothes?”

            “Why would I do that?” Bucky called back. “Still have to shower.”

            Steve groaned.

            When they were fed and clean and dressed, bed stripped and clothes in the hamper, Bucky said, “You know, we could just stay here until-”

            “Bucky?”

            Bucky raised his eyebrows.

            “I think our house can handle it.”

            Bucky stepped in close, pressed their foreheads together. “If anything breaks it’s not my fault.”

            Steve grinned.

            A few steps from the front porch he swung Bucky up into his arms, bridal style. Bucky definitely made a noise that time. Giggled, too. “Steve.”

            “What? You got to propose. Least you can let me do is this.”

            “Isn’t supposed to happen until after the wedding.”

            “Says the man who’s spent the past 24 hours trying to convince me we don’t need one.”

            “That’s not what I-”

            “Hey.” Steve leaned to kiss him, light. “I know. Just letting you know it worked. Even if we’re still engaged.”

            It was hours before Bucky stopped smiling.


	8. Chapter 8

            “How old are you, anyway?” Normally he wouldn’t give a shit, except Bucky was pretty sure it was Steve’s 98th Christmas and that’d make him 98, but then he’d been in the ice for seventy-odd years so he definitely wasn’t 98.

            “Huh.” Steve cocked his head. “Well, we were World War One babies. So that’d make us about a hundred, but we went down at 22, 23?”

            Bucky sighed. “I should remember this. What year was I born, seventeen?”

            Steve thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “You know what? I’m too gay for this.”

            Bucky blinked. Then he pointed at Steve. “Bi erasure!”

            “You were always better at math anyway.”

            “That fact drastically clashes with your too gay for math claim.”

            “The straight half can drive and the gay half can’t do math.”

            “Double bullshit, I’m good at both.”

            Steve smirked. “Cancel each other out.”

            “Fuck you, Rogers. Fuck you and your... twenty-seven-year-old ass? That sounds right, right?”

            “Thought you were supposed to be good at math.”

            “I’m a gay from another era, Steve. We could do math back then. I need time to adjust. Gimee a week and I won’t even know what a fraction is. Promise.”

            “That’d be bad since you’re in charge of feeding Rosie and cup measurements are usually in fractions.”

            “Fine.” Bucky threw his arms up. “I will carry the weight of this family, mathematically speaking, on my shoulders. I’ll be the brains and the beauty.”

            Steve hummed. “I could help you out occasionally, you know. So could Rosie. She’s smarter than both of us. Not to mention our extended family- Clint's gotta be pretty to have so much street art about him, right? And that’s not even counting our imaginary progeny, who has to be a million times better than both of us combined if only based on the fact that the two of us have done about ten lifetimes worth of stupid things in a fifth as many years, so, you know, got somethin’ to pass down that makes for survival.”

            Bucky let his arms flop back to his sides. He decided to let Steve’s obvious fraction skills slide and went to join him on the couch (where he was drawing Bucky for the eight hundredth time that week) and nudged Steve’s leg with his own. “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing imaginary about our progeny."

            Steve almost jumped; his pencil slipped. He turned. “Buck?”

            “I was under the impression this was the sorta thing one discussed before getting married, and my papers are just as good as a ring in that department, anyway, so-”

            Steve cut him off with a hug, sketchbook falling to the floor, but pulled back quick as he could see Bucky’s reaction. “You’re serious?”

            “Of course I’m serious. No need to get all-” he shut up when Steve pulled him into the hug again. Bucky laughed. “I mean it, Steve. I wouldn’t lie to you about something this important. And we did already talk about it.”

            Steve released a shaky breath. “I thought- I mean, I knew you wanted that, but I didn’t know if-”

            “If it was really gonna happen given the colossal headfuck I’ve been through and our combined mental illness cocktail?”

            Steve winced.

            “I’m sorry. That was- I-" Bucky took a breath. “You said it yourself a minute ago. We’ve done so much stupid shit there’s no way we could do a bad job, right? And it isn’t like we don’t have the support system to end all support systems a few blocks away.” Bucky had had a lot of time to think, between the helicarrier and then. About what his life could be. About what he wanted it to be. It hadn’t surprised him that he still wanted things he knew woulda been near-impossible for him and Steve before- stability, family, purpose beyond staying alive another month or week or hour. Would have fought tooth and nail to get them. In the future, now, he didn’t have to. They had those things already- lives tucked mostly out of the spotlight, mostly peaceful, and a billion-dollar-apartment full of people who loved them enough Bucky knew if they did have a kid there’d be too much good around for him and Steve to really have to worry. Biggest safety net they’d ever had and it was only getting stronger. “It was enough.”

            “What?” Steve was crying, sniffling, emotions warring on his face as he wriggled a hand up to wipe his eyes. All that sadness and joy overflowing without a hint of the excitement he knew might pressure Bucky.

            Best thing that ever happened to him, Steve was. Best thing that ever fucking happened to him. “This. You. Us. Me. Rosie helped. After all of it, I feel like... all this was enough. For me to know we can do it. Make a life- keep making a life. I know it’ll be hard. But it woulda been hard anyway.”

            Steve laughed. “Yeah, Buck. And it’s not like we don’t got time.” He buried his face in Bucky’s neck.

            “Of course, sweetheart.” Bucky inhaled, Steve Steve Steve. “All the time in the world.” For the first time in his life it didn’t feel like a lie.

*

            Christmas Eve Eve dawned cold and snowy.

            The snow was light and didn’t do much in the way of setting them up for snow angels come the 25th, but it was plenty and Bucky would take it. They were expected to be at the tower for days. Been just enough time for the- what? The engagement honeymoon phase?- to die down a little, meaning Bucky and Steve were clinging to each other without being as sappy as Bucky was pretty sure they’d been… well, the better part of the past week.

            He and Steve were on their way out of the house, Rosie in tow, when Bucky remembered something and doubled back for it.

            Steve raised his eyebrows when Bucky swiped a tiny cactus off the ledge and took it into the car with them. “Field trip?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Living things need love, Steve.” He didn’t have a schedule for any of his plants; mostly Bucky just tried to listen to them and give them what they needed. Been working alright for him so far.

            For as much as the two of them had had going the week leading up to Christmas, they’d gotten everyone’s presents ridiculously far in advance, so that was one thing they hadn’t had to worry about. As per official addendum to the Avengers charter, as enacted during the pajama meeting, the official uniform for all Avenger and affiliate meetings was pajamas, and Tony reminded them that them assembling technically constituted a meeting so if anyone tried to wear anything other than flannel pants they’d be forced to change or unaffiliate. Bucky had half a mind to wear the pajamas Steve had given him when he’d first come home. The other half of his mind insisted that was too sappy even for Steve and Tony would expect nothing less than obnoxious holiday attire.

            Which meant Bucky showed up beside Steve’s respectably-pajama-clad musculature in light up pants, a sweater he’d sewn the pom-poms to himself, and a crown-like headpiece with a menorah sticking out of it.

            “You Jewish?” Stark asked as he stepped in the door.

            Bucky shrugged. “Fifty-fifty. I know that wasn’t how it was supposed to work back then, but I never attended much temple. Mostly just went to church with Steve and his Ma. Felt like I had to represent.”

            “That makes sense given your sweater. Are those supposed to be reindeer?”

            “Yep. A friend made it for me. I did the detail work.”

            Tony nodded. Then his eyes fell on Steve. “Ugh, Barnes. That the best he could do?”

            “I look great!” Steve was wearing red and green pants covered in hat-clad penguins and a red shirt that said ‘I BELIEVE’ in massive block letters and might have suggested something not festive at all if the letters weren’t made out of green glitter.

            “Eh. Sparkle’s pretty nice,” Nat said. She was already posted up on the sofa. Her dreidel print pajama pants were as close to neon as you could get without a color being neon. And her sweater was-

            “Is that just tinsel? Are you wearing tinsel?” Bucky rushed over.

            “Technically it’s some weird-ass futuristic faux fur stuff. But yeah. I guess these ‘lil white holographic fringey things are basically tinsel.”

            “Nice pants, Barnes,” Sam said. He was in a perfectly respectable plaid and vacation Santa look.

            “Thanks.” Bucky fumbled at his hip to turn the lights off. “Don’t want to run down the batteries.”

            “Where do you think you are, Barnes? Every flat surface in this place is a charger! I don’t want to see those things unlit for the rest of the holidays, kapiche?”

            Bucky rolled his eyes but listened to Tony anyway. “If they break you gotta fix ‘em.”

            “Yeah, those and Clint’s light up hat and Bruce’s Christmas tree sweater. I mean, come on. The pants are a little unexpected, I’ll give you that.”

            “Where are they?” Sam said. “Thought they were gonna be early.”

            “That was until they decided their outfits wouldn’t cut it if there weren’t matching slippers, and then I think they went and got slippers for all of us, and… I shouldn’t be telling you this, the only reason I know is because Clint lets his AI hear everything.” Then he rounded on Steve. “Why don’t you have a ring?”

            “Because if one of us has to do a press conference in the next couple months Fury will have me extradited,” Bucky said.

            “You’re an American citizen. Why would we extradite you to-”

            “Stark.”  
            “Okay, fine, I get it, the man’s crazy. But you should still have something.”

            Bucky raised his eyebrows from his position in Steve’s lap, which he had taken the second Steve settled on the sofa.

            Tony pointed at him. “You were already doing that, Barnes!”

            “I don’t know what you want from me. Steve, you do it.” And Bucky curled up in a ball with his face buried in Steve’s shirt, effectively removing himself from the conversation.

            “I’d definitely lose an engagement ring, and I’m the one who got proposed to so technically that means-”

            “You’re a grown man, Rogers. And the point is that you wear it forever. Or at least until the wedding to let the hotties eyeing you in the street know you’re spoken for, then you trade it for whatever boring traditional gold crap-”

            “White gold!” Bucky said loudly enough to be heard even though his face was still pressed into Steve. “What kind of monster would put gold with my complexion? I mean, Jesus.”

            “Rogers is a gold dude,” Sam said. “Or- wait, what are you doing about that? Are you just keeping your names, or-?”

            Bucky wrenched his face away from Steve. “I’m a classy lady. We are hyphenating. And Steve wears silver all the time, he’s fine. Right, Steve?”

            Steve met his eyes. “You know I don’t give two shits as long as we’re married, right?”

            “Okay.” Stark clapped his hands together. “So Steve gets gold, you get white gold-”

            “Matching!” Bucky and Steve hissed at the exact same time.

            “Christ,” Sam said under his breath.

            “Fine, let’s compromise. How about rose gold?”

            “That’d look like shit on Steve, too. What are you trying to do here, Tony? Are you trying to sabotage the outfit Nat’s buying me for Christmas? Because she’ll kill you for that.”

            “I would,” Nat agreed. “And that color isn’t even that great, anyway. And it’s not classic, either, which our boys most certainly are.” She swung her feet up onto the couch and managed to find space for them behind Bucky, thereby trapping him on top of Steve, which, really, wasn’t a problem.

            “White gold it is. You’re all impossible to please.”

Bucky took that opportunity to peek at Tony’s ensemble, one he hadn’t noticed in the fanfare. “Holy shit, Tony.”

            “What? I’ve been wearing this the whole time.” He did a spin. It was flannel pants and a waffle shirt made to look like the suit in red and green.

            “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

            “Wait ‘til Pepper gets here. She’s got the full Santa suit. It’s amazing the kinda bathrobe designs you can find during the holiday season.”


	9. Chapter 9

            Christmas was so good.

            For three whole days all they did was sit around the common floor throwing pillows at each other, eating, watching movies with loud live commentary, and playing hide-and-seek, even though Clint almost always won. Bucky snuck in a few victories and so did Nat; everybody else complained about how unfair it was playing with international super spies, so they went back to movies. When Tony heard Bucky’d never seen ‘Up’ he paused whatever else was on to put that in. It was the only movie with a moratorium on talking. Bucky cried.

           Once each day he took Rosie and Steve out on a walk to look at all the Christmas decorations and remind them, via shitty disguises and having the vest on, that they were on a temporary vacation and whatever free-for-all honeymoon bullshit they managed to get permission for from Fury would have to wait until they could visit a country where everyone didn’t know their faces.

           Still pretty nice to wear nothing but pajamas and scream into the TV with a bunch of other crazy-superhero-trained people.

           There were a few serious conversations that took Bucky by surprise but made him feel warm and loved by these people all over again, not to mention reminding all of them that PTSD ran in their chosen family and shit would very much be okay.

           By the 29th people would be all over the world again. Stark would be hard at work on some new tech and Steve would be buying all the art supplies he needed for school plus a thousand more and Sam would be singlehandedly revolutionizing the way the government dealt with VAs and Pepper would be running a company. God only knew what the rest of them would be doing. Well. Bucky’d be keeping plants alive and knitting and maybe crocheting and to be honest keeping him and Steve alive too because when Steve got too involved in a project he forgot to eat which really was a problem but Bucky had done the same thing and he couldn’t really blame the guy.

           “Whatcha doin’?” Steve asked Bucky, who was bent over the island with his Christmas present from Clint taking up way more space than anything miniature should.

           “I think I’ll like watercolors better.” He was halfway through painting a little ocean statue that came in a kit with mini paint tubes and three paintbrushes and even a little palette to mix them. Bucky had promised Clint he’d put it in the bathroom if it came out okay. Clint said he wouldn’t have picked out that particular sea turtle and dolphin ensemble if he didn’t think it would look good no matter how shittily Bucky painted it. He'd lost a game of hide-and-seek for that comment.

           “Gonna have two artists in the family,” Steve said. “Maybe three. We should give some paint to Rosie.”

           “We are absolutely not doing that,” Bucky enunciated incredibly well given there was a paintbrush in his mouth. Must be muscle memory from cigarettes or something. “If you give her paint I will put food coloring in our lube.”

           Steve smirked. “I don’t see how that causes a problem for me. Just seems like showering would be hilarious for a few days.”

           “I meant the edible lube.”

           “That still doesn’t necessarily-”

           “ _Steve_.”

           “Okay, fine. I see your point. Still don’t know that the punishment would fit the crime.”

           Bucky added some highlight to the dolphin. “Explain.”

           “She’d get paint all over the house. If it’s my mess I have to clean it up.”

           Bucky stopped painting to stare at him. “You’re starting class. You think when you’re neck-deep in still lifes I’m gonna make you steam clean the freaking rugs?”

           “So you’d do that _and_ have both our faces-”

           “Speak for yourself, I’m not falling on my own sword here.”

           “-my face inexplicably died some ridiculous color?”

           “Yep.”

           “I’m not seeing what you gain here.”

           “I’m gaining your humiliation and my amusement. I’m cleaning it up, anyway, Steve. You and I both know you couldn’t get a stain out of a navy t-shirt if you used bleach.”

           “Wouldn’t that just mess up the shirt?”

           “Yes, but my point is that you would manage to wash it in some nonsensical way that left the stain untouched while the rest of the shirt got bleached.”

           “I don’t think that’s probable.”

           “Neither are you, and here we are.”

           Steve slid his arms around Bucky’s waist. “You’re the only one I’ve ever liked hearing compliments from.”

           “We have to go shopping for the thing, Steve.” They’d promised not to draw any attention granted they got to pick their own New Year party clothes, and even the freaking Avengers stylist had agreed.

           Steve paused in the task of kissing Bucky’s neck to ask, “Why can’t they just do it for us? Thought we weren’t supposed to go out too much.”

           “That’s wearing off soon ‘cause of this party. And you know if we let them pick we’d hate it.”

           Steve hummed. “Who cares?”

           Bucky put a finishing touch on one of the sea turtles- if he didn’t quit then Steve was gonna screw him up- and set the paintbrushes in his water cup. “I care. You wanna be uncomfortable when we’re delivering measured amounts of affection to the public via celebrity social media accounts?”

           “That sentence was horrifying.”

           “Did it turn you off?”

           “Kind of, yeah.”

           “Mission accomplished.” Bucky turned in his arms and kissed him on the nose. “Get your shoes.”

            Steve sighed and obliged him.

            Twenty minutes later they were standing in a department store swarming with other people buying fancy New Year’s clothes. “This is worse than the curtains. Why did we come here?”

            “You said you wanted designer options.”

            “I was wrong,” Bucky said. “Forget everything I said about me being gay. It doesn’t matter. I know nothing about fashion fuck this place.”

            Steve caught his arm before he could start edging inconspicuously towards the door. “Buck.”

            “Steve.”

            “If we go somewhere small people will recognize us.”

            “But you’ll think it’s worth it to pay out the ass because they’ll probably have in-house tailoring.”

            Steve hesitated. “Do you think we can pick a place the employees’ll be experienced enough not to take pictures of us?”

            Bucky considered it. “They wouldn’t care about you. Me they’d break the rules for, I bet.” He sighed. “Fine. This is safer. Even though I feel stupid saying it and will probably be proven wrong in the next ten minutes. Still. This is the fanciest department store I’ve ever seen.”

           “You talking about all the designer areas or the fact there’s a café in here?”

           Bucky shrugged. “Both. But we have work to do. Those shoulders won’t fit themselves.”

           While Bucky was right about it being extremely difficult to find something that looked promising on Steve, he had to concede that in the post-Christmas frenzy they were at least as incognito as they woulda been in the days leading up to the holiday.

           “I don’t know why Fury didn’t let us out,” he called through the dressing room door. He and Rosie were waiting for Steve, who, Bucky had conceded, was probably better off dressing himself a safe distance from any stray dog hair.

           “He will after this. Can’t deny New York their new gay darlings.”

           “Bi erasure.”

           Steve stepped out, looking... well, pretty damn great for someone who needed to have all his clothes tailored.

           Bucky let out a low whistle. “Should dress you up more often.”

           “You were the one who didn’t want to have sex and you know I hate this.” Steve turned a little in the massive mirror. “But yeah, I would also like to see your ass in nice pants.”

           “You saw them in nice pants like three days ago.”

           “The light-up ones?”

           “Exactly. And even if you didn’t mean those I was dressed nice a few days before that.”

           “Not for very long.”

           “You’re doing it again, Steve.”

           “Doing what? I’m not doing anything I’m just... wearing a suit.”

           “Ha ha.” Bucky narrowed his eyes a little. “Keep that one. I think it’s a contender.”

           “Do you really mean it or are you just saying that because you’re turned on?”

           “Shut your smirking ass, Rogers! I can use my critical eye when it’s necessary. Hell, especially when it comes to you.”

           Steve cocked his head. “Guess I see your point.”

           “Next one.”

*

           As expected, the party was horrible.

           Well, not horrible. Not entirely. Steve was there, and so were other fun people who knew Bucky wore light up pants and liked them.

            Except Clint kind of mentioned the pants and then all the “off-duty” reporters started casually asking Bucky about them.

            “If I have to describe those pants one more time-”

            “Just go and get them. You live here, don’t you?” someone famous and already drunk asked.

            Bucky sighed. “Where I live is a matter of national security and I am not able to disclose that to anyone ever. But no, the pants aren’t here. If they were I’d’ve put them on an hour ago just to shut everybody up.”

            “Is the national security thing why you’re still sober?” someone markedly less famous- wait, who even was this dude, how did Bucky know him?

            “Um,” Bucky counted to three real slow in his head. Nope. Not Hydra. “I can’t get drunk. Thor’s not here. He’s doing something cooler than this on Asgard.”

            “You mean Brucey hasn’t come up with better alc for you guys yet?” Dude was pouting. It was almost cute. Then he leaned in and said, “I can’t get drunk either man it sucks.”

            Before Bucky could parse what _that_ meant, Steve was right next to him, hand on his back. He was filling in for Rosie owing to the high quantities of spilling alcohol. “Everything okay, sweetheart?”

            Cute guy whistled. “Jesus, he’s possessive.”

            “I just proposed.”

            “Shit, really? Congratulations! Oh, wait, he said yes, right?”

            “Be stupid not to,” Steve said, and he went from whatever protective careful jealous thing he was doing into lovey-dovey mode in a second flat.

            “Disgusting. If I did that to Logan he’d kill me. He can’t get drunk either. Not for long, anyway. I mean, technically I can get drunk, too, it’s just this super-shit is really… you don’t want to hear this. But I should find Logan. Where the hell did he go?” Dude scanned the room, recognized someone at the bar, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled, “LOAGS!”

            Bucky leaned into Steve a little, figuring if this guy was super he wouldn’t have a chance of getting a comment in until they were at least ten feet away.

            Their new friend noticed. “Oh, yeah. I should be on Adderall. Unfortunately shit doesn’t work for m-” he went into a coughing fit.

            “You okay?” Bucky asked. He knew that cough. It was a bad one.

            “I’m fine. It’s just canc- There you are, Logan, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

            The man from the bar had just walked up, drink in one hand, unimpressed gaze moving between them. “No you haven’t. You just yelled across a crowded room and hoped I’d hear it.”

            “I had to look first to see where to yell.”

            Logan rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe I came down here for this.”

            “You came down here for an open bar, and I came for anonymity and-” the not-Logan one waved his hand around, “-drugs.”

            “They have drugs in Canada.”

            The conversation went on like that for a while, Bucky and Steve mostly watching in amusement until guy number A got bored and dragged Logan somewhere else. No sooner had they disappeared than Clint was taking their place. “Fuck!”

            “What happened, Clint?” Steve looked genuinely concerned.

            “You guys just- do you not know who they are?”

            “They’re Canadian,” Bucky pointed out.

            “And we’re not spies,” Steve added.

            Clint pointed at the two of them, said, “ridiculous,” and dove back into the crowd.

            “Has he always been like that and I just never noticed?” Bucky asked.

            “Like what?”

            Bucky smirked. “Expecting all the super people to know each other.”

            Steve being there really took the edge off, as did the no cameras allowed thing and the everyone else was a drunk celebrity too thing, and even though he’d rather wear yellow gold than admit it, Bucky had a good time. It was weird, his and Steve’s roles being reversed from what they once had been; Steve was the one keeping an eye out for Bucky not breathing, not the other way around. And just that- knowing Steve had his back- made everything not seem so bad anyway.

            Bucky wouldn’t call it his best New Year’s Eve party, but with Steve there at least it came close.

            It was the first New Year’s party Bucky got to kiss him at.


	10. Chapter 10

            Bucky sucked in a breath of clean fresh air that didn’t taste like fear or camera flashes.

            Okay, there were still people taking pictures once every block. But still. They weren’t rude enough to use the flash. And they definitely weren’t rude enough to walk up to a random person in the street who was probably Bucky Barnes but might not be because if he wasn’t they’d have just been rude, and that shit didn’t fly the same in the city as it did… well, anywhere else.

            Rosie knew all the streets around their house and the ones on the way to their favorite places. Bucky could tell she knew them, because sometimes she would get a little ahead of him and start turning a corner before he did, or glancing across the street to check for cars.

            It was good that she knew all this, since it meant when Bucky needed her she’d be there; but more and more he felt like he’d be alright without her. That he loved having her there so he wasn’t alone, so people would think twice before even taking a picture with no flash because Rosie had a real vest she was a real service dog damnit, that he didn’t want her to not be there but maybe he wouldn’t feel so bad pawning himself off on Steve if it meant Rosie could have a night off. They couldn’t do it so much yet. But after the party...

            After the party Bucky and Steve were out and retired and if people didn’t leave them the hell alone they’d go give another town’s paparazzi a chance.

            Bucky didn’t want to leave New York. It was his home. It was Steve’s home. They had their house that Steve had built from nothing and their neighborhood of industrial warehouses and a pack of family who kept an eye on their security just in case. Barring unforeseen circumstances- which were likely or Bucky wouldn’t’a been considering any of this- they were gonna stay there forever.

            Well. Vacation would be nice. Never really seen much of the states save the one he came from.

            When Bucky got home Steve was in the office. He clicked from Bucky’s image tag to something important-looking a second too late for Bucky not to see. “Walking me home, Rogers?”

            “Yeah. You lost them a few blocks earlier than usual.” Steve was red about it. It was cute.

            “We should build some tunnels. Like Avengers Tower parking only better.”

            “Avengers Tower parking has an elevator.”

            “Yeah, I know.” Bucky hung Rosie’s vest and doubled back to kiss Steve. “Doesn’t mean I’m not willing to compromise basement security to feel like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.”

            “That movie was the worst.”

            “You’re entitled to your wrong opinion.” Bucky climbed into his lap and wedged his head into Steve’s shoulder. “Can you work around me like this?”

            “I can try.”

            “That’s my former self-appointed captain.”

            About fifteen minutes later, Steve said, “This isn’t working are you gonna get up or are you stuck to me indefinitely?”

            Bucky hummed his uncertainty.

            And then Steve, because he was Steve, just picked him up and went into the living room. “What we watching?”

            “Nothing. We’re still on the news and Sam and I got through all the tiny house shows last time we watched the DVR.”

            “You wanna just sit like this?”

            Bucky sighed.

            “What’s on your mind?”

            “I was thinking about how I like it here but if we get doxed we have to move.”

            “We’re not gonna.”

            “You sure?”

            “Stark scrambles all the GPS within three blocks of here.”

            “That’s suspicious.”

            “It would be if he didn’t turn it on and off at random times and do the same thing in various other locations throughout the city.”

            Bucky huffed a breath against Steve’s neck. “People can track that.”

            “Not if Tony’s encrypted it.”

            Bucky hummed his assent. They were better hidden than anyone else, save maybe Natasha. “If we’re ever worried we can borrow one of Stark’s helicopters to throw them off the trail.”

            “Right. ‘Cause nothing says inconspicuous- or leave me alone, for that matter- like a private helicopter.”

            “They wouldn’t know it was us. Bet he’s got all sorts of tech camo on the thing, not to mention regular camo. Knowing him it disappears in the sky like those freaky old ones.”

            “You mean SHIELD?”

            “’Course I mean them, who the hell else would I mean?”

            “Hydra.”

            Bucky snorted. “Yeah, okay.” A second later, “I’d leave if we had to. Long as you were with me.”

            “So would I.”

            “Even though we’re not gonna leave.”

            “Nope.”

            “Because if we did Nat would kill us.”

            “Yep.”

            “We should get married here.”

            “We can’t get married until PR says we can.”

            “Yeah, like, publicly. I meant we should get married here in secret with just our friends and the extended families of everyone trustworthy we know.”

            “I don’t think that many people will fit in the house.”

            “So we’ll wait ‘til it’s warm and do it outside, too. Can just leave the door open.”

            “Isn’t that a security threat?”

            “Who cares. And Tony did promise me he could electrify the fence.”

            Steve pulled back to stare at him. “Our fence is wooden, Buck.”

            “Yeah, so? You got the fire repellent stuff, right?”

            “Yeah, but-”

            “But if anyone can figure out how to conduct electricity through wood it’s Howard Stark’s son. He was on that Back to the Future crap a good forty years before the movie came out, and unless we get a magnetic grid system or something the only person who’s probably capable of actually doing that is Tony, so...”

            “So you’re saying you want to set our fence on fire?”

            Bucky shrugged. “Be cheaper than fireworks.”

*

            The temperature readings all looked good. Frost had yet to creep past the very edges of their yard, and Stark insisted Bucky could encompass those, too, if he only turned it up a little.

            But Bucky’s willow was growing. Slim and green and strong. He didn’t want to disturb it when it seemed perfectly happy already.

            Bucky sat outside to keep it company, usually needing nothing warmer than a sweater. He was pretty sure it had come up in less than two weeks based on a combination of determination on the sapling’s part and the constant flow of love he was trying to send into the ground on a near-constant basis. Sometimes he knitted, or tried to crochet. It was still a bitch to learn for some reason; he was going down to the co-op in a few days to get lessons. Sometimes Rosie trotted laps around the tree or the yard, or just sat enjoying the unseasonably warm grass. In between the clicking of needles and pulling of yarn and quiet feet on grass, Bucky talked.

            Bucky told the tree all the things he wanted to tell his younger self. All the things he was afraid to tell Steve. All the things locked up so tight no other living thing had ever heard them. Things he only said when he knew Steve and Rosie were safely away where they couldn’t hear him if he broke down sobbing.

            Sometimes he told stories about him and Steve, ones that made him laugh or smile or cry. A few ended with, “don’t you dare tell Steve,” or even “don’t you dare tell dad,” because he liked thinking of Steve that way, even though he knew they were still a long way away from that. Bucky figured after about a year of having the punk all to himself he’d start to get bored. Well. Not bored. More like ready to move on from his hiding-and-knitting thing to... something else.

            When Bucky thought of what he wanted in the short-term, nothing came to mind, at least nothing he didn’t already have in his life. Hobbies and rest and Steve. Friends. Family. More family. With Steve. Eventually. When he wanted it. When they were ready.

            Bucky’d be the one to stay home, he knew. Even if Steve didn’t find a way to use his degree. Bucky never coulda stayed home if he made it out of the war. If by some miracle he was able to go back to Brooklyn and live with Steve and take care of a kid at the same time. He’d be the one pounding the pavement, working as hard as he had to to make sure Steve and that kid were okay. He would have missed so much.

            It was greedy, Bucky thought, his wanting this thing- time- that most people didn’t get. But after all the years that were taken from him, after so many hours wondering what he could do, good, to even begin to make up for those years... that was the best shot he had. Selfish. Selfish and proud and a little narcissistic, no matter whose chromosomes ended up inextricably linked to their names. Having a kid was one of the most selfish things a person could do. I’ve never met you and can’t begin to imagine the future, but here, take it. Live in it. Take all I know. I hope it’s enough. Take all I know and live.

            The height of arrogance, really. But he still thought it was the best shot he had at putting anywhere near as much good into the world as he’d taken out of it.

            “Dinner,” Steve called, soft through the door, so soft Bucky almost couldn’t hear it. In the holiday week spent mostly in the tower they’d perfected their control of volume, figured exactly how quiet they could be to avoid the others hearing but still get each other to blush.

            Bucky slipped his knitting to the ends of the needles, whistled for Rosie, and went to the back door. “I was wrong, Steve,” he said.

            “About what?” Steve looked up from the kitchen table, where he’d already set their two places, cheeks tinted red from the warmth of the room or the effort of the meal he’d just made. Beautiful, always beautiful, radiating assurance and goodness and love like he’d never had a second to doubt any of those things.

            Bucky was gonna make sure he never did again. “I think I might be the bigger sap.”

            Steve smiled so hard it must’ve hurt.

            Bucky did, too.


End file.
